Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1876 — Have We Too Much Money's [ARTICLE]

Have We Too Much Money's

That there is not money enough in circulation to do the business of country, limited as it is now In extent, is becoming more evident every day. “ Oh,” but the hard-money nabobs and their ignorant followers cry out “ there is a glut of money, there is more than is needed, for you see how cheap it is.” The reply of the writer to such an ass is, that if business keeps on decreasing at its present rate, no money will be needed at all in a few months. When a man is sleeping he does not eat food. The constant contraction of the currency, however, is going to lead to worse results than mere stagnation and dry rot. It will bring on a panic among the banks, a suspension of the United States Treasury, and in ail probability, a bloody revolution. The banks are in a fair way now for the pani<* and yet the bullionist nabobs and foreign bondholders howl for forced resumption. Will the people of the East never realize that under the present programme of forced resumption eighty pm-cent, of their people are to-day bankrupts? Will they never realize that the only class that is or likely to be benefited for forced resumption in 1879 are the foreign holders of Federal bonds? If the strong National Banks of the City of New York were unable to withstand the financial shock of 1873, and became for the time insolvent, when there was three hundred and eighty-one millions of Treasury notes for the redemption of bank currency and payment of deposits, it may safely be assumed tbatthe Federal Treasury itself will in a short time be compelled to face a crisis such as it has not experienced since 1861. The Sherman Law has been in force about sixteen months, and has thus far resulted in a contraction of $41,000,000 of National Bank notes and $12,000,000 in greenbacks —553,000,000 in all—and the Comptroller of the Currency and the Treasurer of the United States estimate that the shrinkage of currency for the remainder of the present calendar year will be at the rate of $6,000,000 a month. In round numbers, there will be, on the Ist of January, 1877, $100,000,000 less money in circulation than when the Currency Act passed in January, 1875. The claim in 1874-5 of the advocates of forcible resumption was that, as the volume of paper money should be contracted, the market value of greenbacks and gold should be equalized. The folly of this is shown in the fact that gold is higher to-day than when the act was passed. The price of gold is made like that of any other commodity by supply and demand, and when it is scarce ana a gold famine virtually exists in this country, the merchant must pay more for it in order to get his goods out of the Customhouse. The greenback on the other hand is based on the credit and faith and wealth of the sovereign people of the United States, and the credit of the Government is not indicated in a time of peace by the rise and fall of gold any more tban it is by the rise and fall of the price of wheat. Now, let us look at the condition of the banks of New York City, and see if they will he able to meet any revival of trade, and if they will not be compelled to suspend just as soon as there is anwdemand for the crops of the West and Soufhin the fall. The New York Timet of theM7th inst. argues that there will be no revival, but rather a diminution of business, so that the banks are in no danger; the same prediction was made by others during the summer of 1873, but when the moving of the crops began the banks ran against a panic and found themselves loaded to) with private credits which had been substituted for the legals that Mr. Boutwell and the Syndicate tool,'Mr. McCulloch, had withdrawn to advance the price of governments. “ Uncle Dick” stood like a . monitor all through the panic of 1878, proclaiming to his friends and the press: “ I tell you, gentlemen, there is not currency enough in circulation to pay the taxes of the country. How, then, can you expect to do any business?” The average amount of greenbacks held by the city banks last week was $42,000,000, which is $16,800,000 lew than they held for the same week last year; and by August they should increase the amount by $20,000,000 or $25,000,000. In 1873 they held $43,100,000 in the middle of May, a maximum of $50,000,000 at the end of July and $34,300,000 in the middle of September, when the panic came, and for forty days the banks were unable to pay their debts in the legal-tenders of the . land. When we consider the immense contraction under the Sherman Act, which has twice taken place, the immense number of legal-tenders hoarded in various way 9, the banks must increase their greenbacks $20,01)0,000 or $25,000,000 by August, or call on their customers ana creditors to suspend business. The longheaded old bank Directors even now begin to talk to their creditors about the great danger of carrying any stocks of merchandise, commodities or securities of any kind, and tell the manufacturers it would be better to suspend production at once than to borrow from the banks to pile up iron, cotton goods, etc., which they cannot sell. The money sharks prater to loan on call on rotten stocks, and discourage all business enterprise. The banks here have already their fill of rotten paper credited as deposits of tne people, too, who are the victims of that shrinkage policy of contraction that the banks now advocate in the A ope of getting control es the volume of currency to be issued by them * telvet. Will we have a panic In November or sooner? The banks say not, because they expect all business but stock jobbing to be at a stand-stlllby that time, so thatthere will be no demand fear money. Ttie writer beg 9 to differ with the banka, believing that the people of this country cannot be suppressed in business enterprise by the banka, and that if the banka do stop the people will have their revenge in the extermination of the present rotten system. — Eugene Beebe, of New York, in tincinnati Enquirer.

Ladirs, read what a gentleman traveling through Pennsylvania says: “Lately we noticed a young single lady handling with skill a large cultivator, to which three heavy horses were attached. At another farm we noticed, several women planting corn and potatoes, and at another place a young and newly-married woman was spreading lime—one of the ugliest jobs on a farm.”

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