Effect of Duties on Imports upon the Value of Gold. 85 



country, the same results will be arrived at without any influx 

 of gold at all, and the little gold remaining in the country will 

 be depreciated in the same degree as if the circulation bad been 

 all coin — the high duties acting as a strong inducement to im- 

 port gold, and the paper currency acting as an equally strong 

 inducement to export it — the two antagonistic forces just bal- 

 ancing each other. If the paper volume, in the mean time, is 

 greater than the gold volume would have been, with no paper, 

 the tendency to import gold, produced by the duties, will net 

 only be balanced, but overpowered by it, and gold will flow out 

 just so long as there is any iu the country not held back by 

 arbitrary means. This latter state of things has existed in the 

 United States ever since the commencement of the civil war. 

 The paper volume has all the while been in excess of what 

 the gold volume would have been without any paper, and, of 

 course, gold has all the while been flowing out of, instead of 

 into the country. Our gold, then, as compared with its value 

 in other countries, is depreciated a little more than forty-one 

 per cent., estimated upon a free trade basis, or a little less than 

 thirty-four per cent, estimated upon the basis of a strictly rev- 

 enue tariff, and our paper currency, by its enormous volume, 

 is depreciated ten to twelve per cent, below that, making the 

 total depreciation of our currency, upon the one basis, about 

 forty-five per cent., and upon the other, about fifty-three or 

 four per cent. 



The foregoing facts and principles have an important bear- 

 ing upon the financial and commercial policy of the country, 

 if it is ever again to have a policy. The country is now suf- 

 fering both from a depreciated, irredeemable currency, and 

 from an exorbitant monopoly tariff, and the signs of the times 

 indicate a determination on the part of the people to rid them- 

 selves of both as speedily as possible. But can we with safety 

 get rid of both at once and all at once ? Let us see. The 

 depreciation of the currency, as we have seen, is compound. 

 The paper is depreciated eleven or twelve per cent, below the 



