Effect of Duties on Imports wpon the Value of Gold. 87 



Domic science knows that this is as impossible as for a man to 

 walk across the Atlantic with a crowbar for a walking stick. 

 Any attempt of the kind would result in another suspension 

 in less than sixty days. It would at once add 11| per cent. 

 to the profit on the exportation of gold, and the gold would 

 disappear as fast as it could be counted out. To resume with- 

 out contraction and at the same time reduce the tariff to a 

 revenue standard, would add forty-four per cent, to that profit, 

 and how long would resumption last then? And yet the 

 country is beginning to demand a return to a specie basis and 

 reduction of duties on imports to a revenue basis, and that de- 

 mand will become more and more imperative. Both can be 

 accomplished without serious disaster; but, in order to do 

 that, the currency must be contracted and the duties reduced 

 by regular installments ^ in pursuance of a steady and persever- 

 ing policy, regardless of the clamor of bankers and specula- 

 tors. A contraction of ten per cent, a year would bring us to 

 a specie basis, under a revenue tariff, in about four years ; and 

 if business men could know that such a policy would be inex- 

 orably carried out, they would regulate their business accord- 

 ingly and steer clear of disaster. A contraction of five per 

 cent, a year, steadily pursued, would accomplish the same ob- 

 jects in eight years, and scarcely be felt at all. The latier 

 policy would perhaps be the better one, if we could depend 

 upon our government to maintain any definite policy for that 

 length of time. The danger is that it would be reversed be- 

 fore the end could be accomplished. Inflation is easy and 

 contraction is hard. It is easy to jump down from the top of 

 a tower, but not so easy to jump back again. The misfortune 

 is that many of our statesmen (?) propose, as the shortest way 

 to get back, to jump down a precipice at its base — to arrive at 

 resumption by way of further inflation ! Many others of 

 them propose to drift back — to wait for the country to grow io 

 the present paper volume ; while the very few who have tak- 

 en the pains to qualify themselves for their business, and 



