186 LAND AND LAB OH. 



Sherman. If we only could have had more money 

 our pyramid would not have fallen." 



A friend and correspondent in Philadelphia, one of 

 the best and most widely known of its industrial sta- 

 tisticians and scientists, and, withal, one who can only 

 see in the contraction of the currency a sufficient cause 

 for our distress, writes to me, saying : "I confess 

 this calamity coming in time of peace, upon a condi- 

 tion of unequaled prosperity, is a mystery to me." 



This class of mourners have not yet learned that 

 first fundamental principle in political economy so 

 clearly laid down by Adam Smith, that " the annual 

 labor of every nation is the fund which originally sup- 

 plies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of 

 life which it annually consumes." If this be true then 

 necessarily the trade and wealth of a people increases 

 or diminishes as that fund of labor is employed or re- 

 mains idle, and in proportion to the wages or interest 

 which it draws or receives in its use. Neither have 

 they yet been able to discover that it was at the very 

 hight of our greatest prosperity, when, as they allege, 

 we had a volume of currency amounting to nearly two 

 billions of dollars, that substantially one half of our 

 great fund of labor that for a number of years had 

 been so fully employed, drawing good interest was 

 at once thrown out of use, receiving no interest, whilst 

 the half that continued employed was largely reduced 

 in value, and received a greatly diminished interest in 

 lower wages. 



It was solely to pay the interest on this great labor 

 fund when so generally employed, twenty years ago, 

 that the demand for a greatly increased volume of 



