430 
Annual Report of the 
pound interest legal-tender notes attended with a rise in the price 
of gold from 190 in May to 257 in August, and a decline to 218 in 
December. 
Five months later, in May, the premium had fallen to 28, and 
this without even the slightest reduction in the quantity of circu¬ 
lating notes in use. In the following October, although the quan¬ 
tity of notes on hand, and therefore out of circulation, had become, 
{is then stated by the comptroller of the currency, very large, the 
premium had risen to 46. In view of all these facts, there is, as I 
conceive, no possibility of exhibiting any necessary connection be¬ 
tween the price of gold and the circulating note. 
As difficult would it be to exhibit any such connection with the 
prices of commodities of home production, all changes in these lat¬ 
ter having resulted from circumstances wholly apart from the sup¬ 
ply of notes. Cotton and woolen goods were high, for the reason 
that a cotton and wool famine had been brought about. Labor was 
high because of the rapid extension of manufactures consequent 
upon the adoption of a protective policy, and upon the demands of 
the government for service in the field. Meat of every kind was 
higher because of the vast demand caused by millions of men in 
arms. Horses were higher because of army demands, and so was 
it with hundreds of other commodities that could be named. Real 
estate, however, remained unaffected; land in Pennsylvania, and 
houses in Philadelphia, having been purchased as cheaply as could 
have been the case before the greenback idea had first been started. 
From that day (1865) to the present, there has been an incessant 
war upon the money of the many, the circulating note, leaving 
wholly out of view the action of money known by the name of 
“deposits,” by means of which the few are enabled to profit at the 
expense of the many who need to live by exercise of their physical 
and mental powers. Fierce as has been the war, so slight has been 
its effect, that at the date of the crisis in September of last year, 
the circulating notes in use, with gold at 15, were greater in amount 
than they had been in 1864 with gold at 250, the total having been 
$759,000,000. Making from this, deductions similar to those made 
by the comptroller in 1865, the net amount may he taken at 
$600,000,000, or about $13 dollars per head, being but $1.51 in ex¬ 
cess of that of 1862. 
Second—The second result of this system would be, that neither 
