the country absolute ruin. We are now traveling in that direction. Currency is only of value as the representative of money. Now (April, 1873) a dollar in paper represents but eighty-two cents in money. Our government has adopted the Utopian idea of making small strips of paper, with certain printed promises thereon, legal tender. This kind of paper has been decided by the supreme court to be money, the "measure of values." Notwithstanding the laws of congress and the decision of the supreme court, this measure of values will not become or remain stable; it is gradually shrinking, while gold, the money of the country, is disappearing. Unfortunately for us, our strips of paper will not pass for money, or legal tender, with other nations. For this reason, the coin of the country has to be used in our commerce with foreign nations. Within the last year, the amount of coin in this country has decreased over $38,000,000. The balance against us in our dealings with other countries is the above named amount. Unless some course is adopted that will prevent this large export of gold, it is only a question of time when we shall have no gold in the country, and the only representative of values left us will be paper money without any intrinsic value. Under the present financial policy of the government, and the unlimited control that corporations and rings, with their power all centered in Wall street, have over the finances, we need not hope that the agricultural products of the country can be transported to the seaboard at rates that will enable us to export the same to foreign countries in any considerable amount. We cannot pay inland and ocean transportation, and compete with other grain-producing countries. The markets of the outside world are practically closed against us. With our high protective tariffs, extortionate charges for inland transportation, lack of ocean commerce, and immense foreign debts, public and private, absolute financial ruin must overtake us, unless a different policy is adopted. The amount of currency being fixed by law, the government has in effect declared that the people of this country shall have but this fixed amount for all the purposes for which money is used. The effect of this arbitrary law, followed and supported by the legal tender decision of the supreme court, is to prevent any increase of the currency or money. The control of the currency being placed in the hands of one man, the whole financial interests of the country are dependent upon his will. No matter how great the wants of the country may be, or how inadequate the supply, no departure is allowed from the inflexible rule as to reserves that the banks are required to hold. If the secretary of the treasury conclude to sell gold to ease the market, he does so; if he decide to issue a half million treasury notes, they are allowed to go into the hands of people, and withdrawn, when in his judgment, he deems it advisable. His acts create a feverish excitement in the money market and derange business, carrying loss to everybody, except Wall street brokers. That power, so necessary to a despotism, and so destructive to republican institutions-the control of the purse of the people, and of the government, has fully obtained in this country. The whole people of the land are as completely under the control of the secretary of the treasury (and he in turn ruled by these powerful combinations) as a ward is ruled by his guardian. The system is bad, and should be changed at once. The government should control its own finances, and the people should be permitted to provide for themselves without asking the permission of the government. We subjoin the following expression of views of one of the ablest and most experienced of the bank officers in this country: "The incompetency of special legislation, when applied to the adjustment and regulation of the paper currency of the country, I presume few sensible men, at all acquainted with the subject, will question; nor is it possible for any man of business, or any possessor of property, in whatever shape, to feel safe while the power to inflate or contract the currency is arrogated by any one man, whether he happens to be some narrow-minded, bigoted, obstinate official, acting on his own volition, or some subordinate clerk, acted upon by others. "No one should be entrusted or tempted with such a power; for no man, however able and honest, could, by any possibility, justly or accurately exercise it. Foolish as was the experi ment, however, we have tried it: and with the ill success that was inevitable. "The sway to and fro of our currency, controlled by the ebb and flow of our business transactions, consequent upon seed time and harvest, is subject to law as imperious and immutable as any that governs either the physical or moral world; and in just the degree that we understand and conform to its action can we hope for a successful solution of the problem that now so vexes the minds and disturbs the interests of all classes of the community. "The nearest approximation we have yet made to such an understanding and conformity has been in the New York free banking law, from which the national currency act has borrowed all of any merit it possesses. "This New York law, free from the vice of monopoly which the national currency act inherits from the necessities of its birth, and open to all men, as any honorable pursuit should be in this republic of ours, is also distinguished by three salient points: perfect security to bill-holders, freedom from arbitrary reserves, and systematic redemption of bills. In this last feature of the law, disagreeable as it is at times to speculation or unwary bankers, lies the key to its success, checking and governing as it does by its conservative action all over-issues, while still leaving the open freedom of the system untouched by any useless restriction; so that, no matter how great the number of those who choose to embark in the business, no more currency can be kept afloat than the wants of the country demand. The national currency act fails because it is a monopoly; because it has only a nominal redemption; and because of its arbitrary reserve clause, which serves only to hamper the means and obstruct the usefulness of our metro politan banks at the very time when the trade of the country most requires their services, to say nothing of the power for evil which a knowledge of this fixed limit gives to the gamblers and speculators who hang around and within our stockexchanges; and, lastly, because it has no power of expansion and contraction in response to the varying calls of trade and commerce. "The substitution of a free banking law for the national currency act—in the mere fact of the release it would give us from constant petitions to Washington officials, leaving the government to attend to its own monetary affairs and strictly mind its own business-would go a great way towards restoring and maintaining the manhood and self-respect we are fast losing, from our constant looking up to and attendance upon the central power, asking to have done for us things which should be self-regulating or which we should do for ourselves. Democrats as we profess to be, we are rapidly aping the follies and acquiring the habits of dependence upon authority characteristic of the older civilizations of monarchial Europe. It is hardly time, I think, for us to take the backward swing of the pendulum of political progress, that is sure eventually to land us where we began." A careful examination of the financial policy of the government ought to convince us that a change is necessary to prevent ultimate ruin and bankruptcy. With gold driven from circulation-an insufficient amount of depreciated currency for the transaction of the business of the country, and the facilities afforded the monopolies for controlling our whole commerce, the agricultural and industrial interests of the country languish the farmer receives no reward for his toil— the laborer is poorly paid-and general prostration extends over the land. A return to specie payment, or an increase of sound currency, would relieve all cause of complaint, and enable the industry of the country to receive a fair remuneration for its labor. -- A CHAPTER XXIV. OUR TARIFF POLICY DOES PROTECTION PROTECT? DIVERSITY of opinion exists throughout the country upon the question of tariff. Politicians, statesmen, and the people generally, differ as to the policy the government should adopt respecting it. It is generally admitted that the revenue for the support of the government should be derived from duties levied upon imports. The real point upon which a difference exists is, whether the government should levy a tariff for revenue alone, or whether it should be levied for the purpose of affording what is termed a protection to American manufactures and interests. This question is no nearer a solution now than it was forty years ago. Those who favor protection appeal to our national pride; the necessity of encouraging home manufactures, and of competing with the cheap labor of Europe. A tariff for protection has been urged and adopted as the only means of fostering home productions for so long a time that it is deemed one of the necessities of the country by its advocates. They look upon it as a chief means of affording a home market for the farm produce of the country, as well as affording a market for all manufactured articles. While, on the other hand, those who are opposed to a tariff save for revenue, claim that what is termed protection, is, in fact, oppression; that it cripples commerce, taxes the people oppressively and unjustly, and, instead of benefiting the producer by affording him a market, deprives him of it. They insist that the agriculturists of this country need, and must have, the advantage of foreign market in order to make farm pursuits remunerative. We have been combating monopolies, and shall attempt to show that what is termed a protection tariff affords no protection to the people at large, or to the operatives and laborers in |