Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1875 — Wendell Phillips upon an Increase of the Currency. [ARTICLE]

Wendell Phillips upon an Increase of the Currency.

Report has it that Judge Drunimund of the United States Circuit Court, has ordered the sale of the Wabash and Erie canal. John Morrissey is willing to bet that Elihu B. Washburn will be the next Republican candidate for the Presidency but he is not so confident about his election. Tipton county boasts that she h to have a ditch seven miles to cost $6,000. Without bad hick Jasper county will have forty-four and a half miles of ditch in two Congressional townships,estimated to cost nearly $35,000. Mr. Hawks, the contractor for the Rensselaer and Kankakee link of the C. &S. A. R. R.. bits resumed work on his portion of the line, the difficulty which was reported between him and his bands having been amicably settled.— Monticello Herald. Not a word of truth in the statement—not a single word. . At Brookston, says the Reporter, are many fair-weather Christians who wouldn’t go to church through a heavy dew, but would swim to attend a circus. Possibly their partiality is to be ascribed to a discriminating taste. The programme and acting may be superior at the latter place.

J. J. Talbot has issued the prospectus of the Advance Guard, a new publication to be started at Indianapolis soon in the interest of the Good Templars of this State. Among numerous other contributors will be Hon. Schuyler Colfax, Hon. William Cumback, Hon. William Baxter, Luther Benson, Miss Au retta Hoyi, etc., etc. Subscription $2 per annum in advance. Lightning struck the Democrat building this (Wednesday) afternoon just as we were going to press, and we stop for an item. The bolt entered at the front corner, and, ripping loose the boards, entered the composing room and knocked George Grinnnet to the floor, and stunned Mr. Maddock’s boy. Passing on down, it struck Frank Boynton, who was leaning against the tn mt door frame, and knocked him senseless. However he soon recovered consciousness, and, although badly shocked, will recover. Mr. Willoughby also felt a touch of the electricity, but was not hurt. It was a narrow escape for all who were in the building.— Fotoler Herald. Of course, nobody was hurt. Auld Clootie takes too gude care as his aim to permit lightning to k’H a Democratic editor.

About as spicy a paper as conies to this office, is the new Fowler, Indiana, Dtmoerci. It is edited by Wm. B. Maddock, Esq., who is a lively v?riter, and understands how to present local items in a concise, crisp and interesting manner. The only disagreeable feature about the paper at all prominent, is its politics, which are illiberally and disgustingly Democratic, of the nncompronus’ng Bourbonistic school. The mechanism of its pages is excellent, giving it a neat and artistic appearance. Altogether, barring politics, it may be called a first-rate counuf newspaper, and one of which the proprietor and his patrons may justly be proud. It is worthy of a generous support, and we wish it unlimited pecuniary prosperity.

In a recent letter to the editor of I the Boston Journal cf Commerce,'. Mr. Phillips advances the following] ideas respecting the results that would follow' an increase of currency sufficient for the demand® of business: You invite me to read Mr. Amasa Walker’s article on the currency. It was unnecessary. I always read 1 every line I see written by an oppo- ! nent, and (especially bv my friend! Walker. You offer to print any reply or criticism I wish to make. I suppose Mr. Walker will say it is not yet time to criticise him. What heprints in your issue of July 3 is only an in* production orpreface to something he has to say. To consider it a com piece plan or substantial statement won kt be unjust to him, since, so considered, it is simply absurd. Mr. Walker’s plan, Ao far as he has yet opened iU is for the world to give up all credit and return to a system of naked barter. According to him, no may buy wood, coal, iron or wheat "unless he stands ready to exchange gold for it. This is worse than the times of Solomon or the Trojan war. Then you could buy wool with leather, or wheat with iron. But Walker allows no one to buy anythingexeept with gold. Before you enter any market you must have gold in your hand, or a

certificate that you have just left your gold in the keeping of the United States. Of course this is absurd in our century. One might as well ask travelers to give uu railways and go back to ox-carts as to ask trade to give up credit and go back to barter. Yetthis jis exactly Mr. Walker's proposition as at present stated. Patterson tells us (Science of Finance, pp. 5,6.) that in Great Britain gold supplies little more than one-half per cent, of the currency, and bank notes and coin together make only three percent. A New Haven journal told us, two weeks ego, that a check for SBOO passed through seven bands* and paid seven debts of that amount before it was presented at the bank counter. Five thousand six hundred dollars worth of business done by a slip of paper which had no relation to or connection with gold. It rested simply and entirely on credit. The exchanges effected at the New York Clearing House were $38,000,(W,OOO in the year 1569. What a use- ; less burden to insist that ail this amount of business shall be donfc-wilh actual gold coin I We must therefore use credit; which is but another name for paper money i in its different forms—bills, checks, i notes, ere. We propose to use the credit of the i nation as the basis lor this greenback 'currency —exactly &s the so-called 1 specie system o.’Great "Britain does. What forms the basis of the currency l of Great Britain? Gohl? No. The first 30,000,000 of bank notes issued by the Bank of England do not under* take to represent specie. They represent so much money owed by the government to the bank; in other i words, they represent government bonds, never para and never expected to be paid. Precisely that is the basis we ptoi»ose to have for our greenbacks —the natiom. When the Bank of England nearlv touched bankruptcy in 1825, 1833, 1837, 1847, 18-57, and 1566 —what did she ask of thegovermnent, the loan of gold? No. She asked for the issue of exchequer bills —that is, substantially, government bonds. We mean to have greenbacks, at all times convertible into government bonds,at a low fixed rate of interest, such greenbacks to constitute the whole currency of the country; all banks forbidden to issue bills and confined to the function of receiving deposits and making loans. * No bulllonlat will maintain, to-day, that iii« theory means our return to actual, simple barter; the exchange of one species of merchandise —gold—for every other species, whenever a sale Is made. Every one of our readers will allow that we must use credit. Credit means greenbacks, bank bills, checks, deposits, gold certificates, etc. The only questions are: 1. How many of these shall beallowed; that is. what amount of currency shall be allowed? 2. Upon what shall they be based — upon gold or some other security? To the first question we answer, the business of a country always settles the amount of Its currency. No matter what be the formal or supposed system, sjwcie basis, or paper, the above statement remains always inevitably true. Great Britain pretends to settie that after thirty millions of bank bills, based on government bonds, no more paper currency shall exist which does not represent actual sovereigns deposited in the Bank of England. But the merchants created of themselves currency enough in 1869 to effect exchanges at the London Clearing House amounting to $17,000,000.000!

Our paper money banks and government supposed that they had limited the currency to somewhere about 800.000,000. But the merchants, in ISC9, created enough currency in the shape of notes, checks, aud certificates of deposit to effect exchanges in New York amounting to 38,<X>3,<>00,<MK). The fact is, the democratic principle governs trade. The day when governments, or the upper settled how much bread should be' made and what should be h < price how much gold lace should be made and who should make it—has passed away. Who would dream to-day of choosing five hundred bank directors to settle how much coal should be mined, how much wheat planted, and how much eouon cloth made? Supply and demand settle such questions, and the world recognizes lht\t so such things are best settled. Banks and Secretaries of Treasuries imagine they determine the amount of the currency J As well might Old Probability churn that he deteimined the weather. He aud they oniy record what mighuier forcesoo. Business creates just such, and just so much, currency as it needs, everywhere and at all times. You will ask, if this be so, why are not you greenback men content? I will tell you. At present only large capitalists, banks, and the favorites of banks, can thus create currency. It is a monopoly—a very close corporation or ring. When half a dozen Rhode Island banks failed, and their ■ books were exposed to the public gaze, Iwe saw that one great firm —the 1 Sp.agues—had borrowed all their , funds. At present this’>ower of mak- ! ing currency is confines to banks and ‘ their pets. We mean the whole peo.i pie shall enjoy it. Whoever can , p’edge property shall be entitled to a (certain proportion o' its value in . greenbacks. The system will not inI crease the currency one dollar. It I will only give us moregreeabneksand ( fewer cheeks. Cheeks a:e ai istoerat ic, green backs are democratic. It will ■ put the man with SI,OOO on a par with (a man who has $1,000,000. so far as , using his means is concerned. It will regulate interest better than gold and the Bank of England can do. No holder of a greenback will lose a dollar while the Union lasts, and that is all the English claim, viz.: that no holder of a Bank of England note will lose* a shilling while the Empire sttmdfc