tage of small patches of ground lying amid rocks, clearing away all removable blocks of stone, and carrying thither soil and manure painfully scraped together. The following table exhibits the facts of the case at a glance: Now there is not much manufacturing industry in any part of Ireland -in Connaught absolutely none, in Munster next to none. The people subsist almost entirely on the produce of the soil, or by the sale of that produce. Yet we find that the amount of land for each person averages only 3.6 acres, including even what is of scarcely more value for the support of life than the bays and creeks by which it is surrounded; while of actually, cultivated or cultivable land, the share of each man is less than 2 acres. With such facts as these before us, the following from a correspondent in Ireland of the London Times, in November last, is not surprising. This correspondent says: "I have now for the last ten years settled in the midst of an agricultural population. I have anxiously observed the wretchedness with which I am surrounded, and my observation of facts has forced upon me several conclusions. I see that, as a class, the small farmers are doomed, and that nothing can save them from the effects of the process which sweeps them away. I see that even large farmers can only succeed by giving up all tillage, except what is absolutely necessary for their stock, and that they are universally aware that they never again can compete with America and the Baltic. etc., in the matter of corn, but that they are able to compete successfully with the world, as to butter and meat; that neither rents nor profits result from tilling, and that both can be made and realized, as well as at any former period, by stock and pasturage. "I see, as the necessary consequence, the miseries of an unemployed laboring class, unable, after repeated trials and failures of the potato crop, to live upon the land on which they are squatted, if they had it rent free. * * * * * "The laboring people of my neighborhood esteem themselves well off if they can get a shilling a day, without house, meat, or drink, for three or four days of each week for the next six months, and this is actually what the fortunate few receive, and what the one resident proprietor who endeavors to find employment for them gives. In the summer they borrow a little to feed them while cutting their turf, and throughout the winter the wife, the son,,or the father, takes the ass-load of turf five Irish miles to sell for 8d and 10d, and often 6d, which is to feed and pay for the ass and the guide, and meet the demand of the loan fund. These people are wretchedly fed, clothed, and housed." Can we wonder, after reading such statements as these, that emigration should increase? And is it not evident that until the population is much less than it now is, so that the proportion of land to each person is greater than at present, emigration must continue to be of great advantage, both to Ireland and the emigrant. It is a remedy, not a disease. UNITED STATES BANKS AND PAPER CURRENCY VS. STATE BANKS AND THE SUB-TREASURY. THE Secretary of the Treasury has announced in his annual report that the object of the National Bank System is to introduce "a permanent national currency." This is a very grave announcement. It is no less than reversing with a sweep of the pen the decision of the American people in relation to paper money in general, and particularly in relation to a national bank connected with the Government and controlled by political influences. If any one question can be considered as fully and clearly settled by public opinion, after a long discussion of fifteen years, it is most certainly the condemnation of Government connection with banks. Yet, in a moment of extreme distress-almost of national dissolution-the Secretary of the Treasury seeks to reimpose a system worse than any before tried in the country. It was first suggested as an aid to our finances, at a time when Government stocks were slow of sale, but is now put forth as "a permanent currency plan; and in discussing this question it should be remembered, therefore, that this bank system is not proposed as a war measure-a system necessary for the support of Government in these trying times-but as a peace establishment, a "permanent currency." Any temporary war measure we should support, if we considered it an assistance to Government in its present efforts to raise money; but when the idea is announced by the Secretary of the Treasury that he is about to fasten permanently upon us the evil of a paper currrency and Government banks, it becomes all thoughtful men to hesitate before they give in their adhesion to any such plan. This proposition of the Secretary is the more wonderful when it is remembered that, during the long struggle with the National Bank and paper money interest, Mr. CHASE was among the advocates of the "constitutional" specie currency and "divorce of bank and State." For a moment let us look at the past. This Government was organized amidst the ruins of a paper money system which had sapped the strength of each of the States and ruined the credit of the Confederation. There In was then (in 1780,) no paper of any credit afloat, and but about $5,000,000 of specie.* The credit of the Federal Government was restored by the grant to it from tire States of the sole right to collect duties on imports; but it was without a currency, and the means of internal communication were very difficult. The fiscal affairs of the Government required under such circumstances, according to Mr. HAMILTON, a national bank, which was chartered, in 1791, for twenty years, and not to issue notes under $10. Several State banks also came into operation about the same time. 1811, when the charter of the bank expired, the paper circulation, according to GALLATIN, was $36,000,000, with $30,000,000 of specie in the country. Congress then refused to recharter the United States Bank, and a great number of State banks started to take its place, so that in 1814, during the war, the paper circulation was $46,000,000 and the specie had declined one-half. The banks suspended and specie rose to 17 premium. The New Orleans banks stopped April, 1814; the Philadelphia banks euspended August 30, 1814; those of Ohio and Kentucky, January 1, 1815, and those of Nashville, August, 1815. Some of the Maine banks suspended, but other banks in New England sustained specie payments. The HAMILTON'S Life, page 359, vol. 1. whole circulation was then $75,000,000,* of every shade of discount from 3 to 60 per cent. In this currency the revenues of the Government were collected, and the banks were the depositories of the Government. On the return of peace, in order to restore the currency, the "new" National Bank was chartered in 1817 for twenty years, but it was a long time before the currency was fully at par. During the existence of that institution State banks multiplied, failed, and despoiled and disgusted the people in all the States. Many devices were employed to keep bankers from failing, but without much success. Vermont and New York tried safety funds, and other States put many kinds of limitations upon the power of corporate banks. Boston devised the "Suffolk system," which operates to compel each bank in New England to be ready at all times to redeem its notes at the financial center, and that plan is, perhaps, the only effective one. Meantime the National Bank had grown up into a great political machine, and, as the limit of its charter approached, it struggled to prolong its existence by exerting its political influence. The Government removed its deposits from the custody of the concern and placed them once more with State banks, all of which, with the National Bank, suspended specie payments in 1837, with $149,000,000 circulation outstanding. The banks of New York and New England resumed specie payments May, 1838. The United States Bank, together with a large number South and West, were unable to do so. Their assets were taken at inflated prices and could not be realized in specie prices except at a total loss of capital. It was therefore impossible to resume. Nevertheless, the resumption in New York compelled the attempt, and January, 1839, the United States Bank resumed and staggered on until October 11, 1839, when, after a desperate attempt to force a second failure in New York, it went down and was liquidated. Two hundred million dollars of bank capital then went out of existence South and West. The time had now come for reform. The people were weary of the continual expansions, inflations, and suspensions of the banks and of the paper currency with which they flooded the country and robbed the public. The Government recognized the evil, and reformed the coinage in 1837 in such a manner as to tend to keep gold in the country. It forbade the sale of lands for anything but specie, and projected the Independent Treasury plan of finance, by which all the revenues of the Government were to be collected and disbursed in specie, and an entire divorce of Bank and State perfected. On the 7th of January, 1841, Congress required of the Secretary of the Treasury, LEVI WOODBURY, 1st, A return of the losses that had been sustained by the Government by using banks as depositories, and by its connection generally with banks; 2d, The amount the people had lost by banks and their issues. The replies were in substance as follows: Losses sustained by the Government to the year 1837.... $15,492,000 108,8-5,721 95,000,000 7,121,332 Losses by counterfeit notes beyond losses by coin.... 4.414,444 Losses by fluctuations, revulsions, sacrifices of property, etc. 150,000,000 Aggregate... $380,943,497 + Secretary CRAWFORD. The House Committee of Ways and Means, in 1830, estimated the losses on depreciation of bank notes issued prior to 1817 at $30,000,000. They embraced, in this estimate, the loans made by the Government in depreciated paper and subsequently paid in gold. Thus, in 1814, $100 in gold was paid in the redemption of a stock which had been issued at 88 for bank notes, at 12 per cent discount for specie-equal to 77 for specie. The Government thus paid 10 years' six per cent interest, $60, and $100 principal, making $160 for the use of $77. All these evils of the paper system determined Congress to pass the Independent Treasury law; that is, a law by which the Treasury should be independent of all banks, receiving and paying out the "Constitutional currency" only. The Whig party came into power, March, 1841. They called an extra session, and immediately repealed the Treasury law, throwing the Treasury again into the hands of deposit banks in various parts of the country, but all of which were required to give ample security for the public funds. At the next election this party lost power, and the Independent Treasury law was reenacted in 1846, continuing in force down to February, 1862, a period of sixteen years, to the entire satisfaction of the people, the banks, and the Government. No disturbance of the currency was created by it; the Goverument did not lose a dollar; and its action, by keeping up a constant demand for coin for all public dues, and emitting a stream of metallic currency through the channels of public expenditure, kept the metals active and wonderfully promoted the increase of the metallic currency. In all that period, the finances were in New York administered with great ability by Mr. J. J. Cisco, Assistant Treasurer. its. In the meantime, each State had taken similar action against bank credNew York had, in 1838, established the security system, by which no bank can issue notes not secured on New York or United States stock. Illinois prohibited banks altogether, but subsequently allowed the security system, but had provided for the collection of State duties in specie. Ohio had similar provisions, and throughout the country there was a steady approximation to a purely specie currency. The New York security law was adopted in the following States: The effect of all these movements was greatly to diminish the use of paper as a currency; but the extraordinary degree to which this diminution took place is not generally appreciated. The following figures will give some indication of it. They show, per census, the annual productions of the country at three periods, with the imports and exports, and bank circulation: The paper circulation in 1840 was about nine dollars per head of the population. It was sixty per cent of the imports and exports, and thirteen per cent of the annual productions. In 1860, the circulation was less than seven dollars per head of the population, thirty per cent of the imports and exports, and only five per cent of the annual productions. Had it borne to the latter the same ratio as in 1840, the amount would have been $560,000,000. The increase required by business was made up, it appears, by specie. Thus the whole currency had become either specie, or paper secured upon State and United States stocks, and this to an extent that was quite safe, because the rule that the bank notes of each State should be secured on the stocks of the State afforded far greater security than if all were secured on one kind of stock. Thus New York State stock will always be a favorite with New York capitalists; the citizen of Massachusetts prefers his own State stock. The surplus capital of each State naturally seeks investment near home, where its value is controlled by no rival interests. It is apparent from the above table that the course of the Government in separating its finances from the banks, and making the currency of the Constitution the only medium between it and the people, and causing it to flow actively through the Treasury, was an eminently wise one. It is also apparent that the restraint put upon paper money by State laws operated in a most salutary manner in the same direction, and induced the immense development of business which grew out of the great production of the country, to be carried on in a strictly specie currency. If it is assumed that all goods and produce produced are sold five times only before being consumed, then the trade of 1840 would be represented by $5,500,000,000, which turned upon a mixed currency of $232,000,000. In 1860, by the same rule, the transactions were $20,000,000,000, and turned upon a mixed currency of $477,000,000. Thus four times the business was done, with double the circulation, because being specie it was more effective. Such, then, are the lessons of the past. It was only through fire and water, as we have seen by our hasty review, that the country reached this comparatively safe position financially. And we are now in this war reap ing the blessed fruits of this policy, for the great increase of specie capital of the country thus brought about has been of immense service in this hour of the nation's trial. Let us reflect what would have been the case now, had the country been as bare of coin, and its currency as dependent upon rotten banks, as in 1836-37? The first disturbance caused by the war would have swept all into insolvency, and left the Government without credit and without resources. So far from that, when the Treasury came forward for aid in 1861 the banks loaned $150,000,000 in gold to the Government, and would have been able to have maintained specie payments notwithstanding, but for the unfortunate inspiration of the Secretary, which * Census reports. + Treasury reports. + Mr. CHASE. |