DIMINUTION OF CURRENCY IN USE. 4Ui 



million or ten millions, or a national debt, even, or a basket of 

 peaches, it is all the same in principle; but it does not alter the fact 

 that the metallic dollar has got to be given as a pledge. The 

 doctrine is the same. 



Q. The steadiness in the value of the gold secures justice ? 



A. Certainly; because you have an article of real value; but in the 

 case of inconvertible currency, when you bring me a legal-tender 

 note and tell me it is as good as a dollar, that the Government is 

 bound to pay it, I say directly, &quot; If you had brought me a metallic 

 dollar I could take it to a jeweler and sell it. I could not lose. At 

 the worst, I could melt it and sell it as metal, and therefore I am 

 paid.&quot; But if I find you bringing me a piece of paper which the 

 United States Government says shall be paid, and does not say 

 when, I say that it is not payment, and if I take it I must charge 

 you something for the risk I run. The first quality of a currency is 

 that it must have a permanent value. &quot;We cannot say positively that 

 gold never changes in value, but the change is so little that the dif 

 ference practically is nothing, If gold should jump up as it did in 

 Elizabeth s time, through the lowering of the standard, it would be 

 as bad as paper, because it would miss the one quality that people 

 rely upon permanency of value. The American currency is not to 

 be trusted. It has destroyed its one great function that of being 

 a guarantee to the taker of it that he will get things of equal value. 

 Nothing is more abominable than going to a dealer and being com 

 pelled to ask the relative prices of gold and currency. It is the 

 same as asking of a ship, &quot; Is she half rotten, or wholly rotten?&quot; 



Q. People out West know that all this is so, but they say, if they 

 go back to the old standard they have got to pay ten per cent, more 

 than they owe ? 



A. That may be. That is the punishment for getting into bad 

 ways. My answer is: Is a nation to be permanently injured because 

 it has done the wrong thing ? Because some individuals must suffer, 

 therefore must all suffer on their account? No. It is one of the 

 consequences of sin. I admit the statement to be true that there 

 must be suffering. In England they gave three years and diminished 

 the suffering as much as possible; but to say that because we have 

 sinned w r e must go on sinning, on account of contingent suffering, 

 is absurd. If it is a good political argument, I have nothing tc 

 say. 



Q. &quot;What do you consider the evils of an inconvertible currency 

 of fixed amount, as ours was up to within a year ? 



A. The answer is, the quantity of notes may be the same, un 

 changed, but the quantity that a nation wants for use may vary 

 enormously, and therefore the fluctuation of value may go on. That 

 is one of the curses of it. There is less currency wanted in England 

 now than there was three years ago. Our currency simply goes out 

 of commission. There is no disturbance in the value of it. But in 

 the case of an inconvertible currency, suppose you only want three 

 fourths, owing to circumstances such as now exist. It is very clear 

 the quantity of notes remaining unchanged won t prevent deprecia 

 tion in value, because every man in America wants only three notes 

 this year where four were wanted last year. That is the state of things 



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