Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1907 — NO MORE CURRENCY TINKERING. [ARTICLE]

NO MORE CURRENCY TINKERING.

Danger of Overdoing; Emergency Palliatives. The bankers of New Yore, Boston, Chicago. St. Louis and the .other financial centers are rejoicing over the government’s announcement of an issue or $50,000,000 of Panama canal 2 per cenj bonds and $100,000,000 of 3 pgr cent treasury certificates. Like ’’ Messrs. Roosevelt and Oortelyou, the bankers believe that the government will thus unlock all the hoards of idle Cash, and restore it to trade channels, wh?re it can perform its customary functions. Confidence is gradually reviving, snd that is all there is needed to restore business to its old-time activity. For the psychological effect which it has on the country the action of the President in thus providing for an immediate increase in the currency is justitmble. But there Ts aliC'&y s danger of overdoing these financial palliatives. Emergency measures of relief are often effective for the moment, but they sometimes .do harm after normal conditions are restored. For this reason it is to be hoped that the government will take no further;steps "tTr the' dfrcct i oir of - 'in“ creasing the currency except an ;H-t nf I-liis \vin hisimT intelligent discussion from all points of view. The measures which tne President has announced will accomplish their immediate purpose, which was to coax the hoarded currency out of its hiding places. But when all of it gets hack into trade channels, there will be too much of it. We will have gained S7O.OUQ.OQO in gold bv the time that the metal already ordered gets to New York. —This gold, coupled-witu the new currency which will be created by the measures announced by the government, will put the volume of the circulation far the needs of legitimate trade Our currency was sufficient, until the recent scare and hoarding began, to meet all demands of the exchanges, and trade was more active then than it is likely to he for the next two or three months, until confidence is fully restored. An immediate effect of <1 leduudan-c-y in currency will be that the gold which we have recently imported will all go back to Europe. Gold exportation, .always takes .place when the curnhsorptioa... point in business. The $70,000,000 of currency which will drive out our S7O, 000,000 of gold would be a poor exchange for us in this or any other exigency. When, just after the Jay Cooke failure iu September, 1873, and the general financial convulsion which started at that time, President Grant was appealed to by the New York bankers to reissue the $44,000,000 greenbacks which, -several years earlier, Secretary McCuiloch had retired and canceled, he refused. In carrying.out the purpose of the wartime legislators to retire the greeu--4tueka-m-3aoft--as- PQSsible, se as to re-_ sume gold and silver payments by the treasury, McCulloch abolished as muen of that currency as he could safely do, and Grant refused to reissue it. Contraction was resorted to in order to make resumption of specie payments easier when Congress could be induced to pass a resumption act, and Grant wanted resumption at the earliest possible hour. The panic incited Coiigress to pass a bill in April, 1874, which would have added about $44,000,000 to the currency, but Grant vetoed it because he believed it would delay resumption. The financial scare was far more acute in those days than it is now, and the danger was immeasurably greater. Grant, however, refused to he stampeded by the clamor for more currency. A little of this firmness will be in order for Mr. Roosevelt m this exigency. No harm has been done thus far by anything which’ the President has countenanced. The money is being coaxed out of its hiding places, an<l when it gets back into its old channels it will be abundant enough for all legitimate purposes. The Panama canal bonds, thougih not needed now, will be needed- some time. The treasury certificates will run for a year only, and are not legal tender, so that they will be retired twelve months hence, when interest on them ceases. In the meantime the treasury will send money to the financial centers in the West and Soutn, wherever it is needed. A. permanent requirement is to make our currency more elastic, and this is a task, which Congress can attend to at its leisure tills winter. —St. Louis Globe-Democrat. Do Not Depend op the Tariff. It is time to have it understood that the creation of monopolistic combinations does not depend on the presence of absence of a tariff, but upon the existence of opportunities to engross supplies or coutrol the machinery of transportation or exchange. For instance, there is a protective tariff bn wool; but the business of wool growing cannot be monopolized, even though it is languishing. For a clear understanding of the question it should be plainly recqgnlibfi that wherever, through n£glect> or nlaladministration of the law, there is an opportunity to combine or control either the sources of supply or the means of production, or the channels of transportation or exchange, there the combinations to monopolize the given staple will spring up. This is inevitable If the law does not correct or punish the offense. There may be men too honorable to share in such schemes, but the dynamic fores of tbe tendency is seen in the fact that the people who are willing to share in It can buy out or extinguish those who will not —Clinton (la.) Herald. Not unacquainted with misfortune, I learn to aacoor the wretched. —VlrvlL