450 THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION. 



degree of perfection so long as paper money is made con- 

 vertible into coin, as such convertibility renders paper of 

 the same value as metallic money, but it is defective inas- 

 much as it does not banish the latter from circulation, and 

 does not save, therefore, the whole expense of a metallic 

 currency." McCnlloctt s Political Economy. 



The great English financial writer, Thomas Atwood, 

 says: u Contrast all the dangers, the changes, the fluctua- 

 tions, the unjust ruin, the unjust aggrandizement attend- 

 ant upon a metallic standard, with the security, the equality 

 of prices and of values, the exemption from unjust losses, 

 and from unjust gains, and the general stability of all 

 profits and of all prosperity, which a non-convertible paper 

 currency presents, self existent, self dependent, liable to 

 no foreign actions, entirely under our own control; con- 

 tracting, expanding, or remaining fixed according as the 

 wants and exigencies "of the community may require a 

 non-convertible paper currency presents every element of 

 national security and happiness without the possibility of 

 injuring any one class of the community. By it we may 

 forever insure a wholesome range of prices, neither too 

 high nor too low, but securing at all times the due reward 

 of industry to the productive classes, and the due distribu- 

 tion of mutual rights and interests among all other classes 

 of the community. I have reflected upon the subject for 

 twenty years; I have continually turned it in my mind in 

 a thousand shapes and ways, and I still most firmly retain 

 the opinion above expressed. And one important fact I 

 ought to mention, in confirmation of this opinion: I have 

 never met one single individual who has had leisure and 

 disposition to turn his thoughts to this subject who has not 

 fully adopted the same opinion in the end." 



"If these arguments are wrong, is it not strange 

 that no one has ever been found to point out their error? 

 All the experience that we have had in Great Britain con- 



