221 Wisconsin - State Agricultural Society. 
national bank-notes are worth 107 in gold, and why? Because 
they can exchange them for 6 per cent, bonds! It cannot, he adds, 
“be claimed that this illustration is not a fair one because the na¬ 
tional banks had first deposited the bonds. The same would be true 
of the people under the interconvertible plan. It is a possible con¬ 
version into interest-bearing bonds that gives the value of gold!? 
Judging by the exclamation points with which this argument is 
garnished, a good deal of stress is laid upon it and yet we should 
have to go a long way to find a more glaring instance of misappre¬ 
hension of facts and of false reasoning. 
In the first place, Mr. Allis did not make his point quite so strong 
as he might; the government only allows the issue of 90 per cent, 
of the par value of the bond in national bank-notes; therefore, ac¬ 
cording to his reasoning, the value of the dollar in the hands of the 
banker is not 107, but 117. 
Secondly, there is no more difference between the value of the 
greenback and the national bank-note in the hands of the banker 
than in the hands of any one else. The greenback is quite as po¬ 
tent to redeem the bond which he has pledged with the govern¬ 
ment as his own bank-note would be—and as a matter of fact 99-100 
of the bonds that have been lifted, have been redeemed by deposit¬ 
ing greenbacks with the treasurer for the protection of the out¬ 
standing notes, the retirement of which is a slow process. 
But is it worth while seriously to discuss an argument based on 
the assumption that the redemption of a piece of property which 
has been hypothecated for an amount considerably less than its 
value, and the deposit of a sum of money on call taking a receipt 
as evidence thereof, are transactions identical in their nature? If 
a man have a $l,000-bond pledged as collateral security to a loan of 
$100, should those dollars when they came into his hands be quoted 
at900 per cent, premium? 
The confusion of ideas in this case arises from confounding the 
market-price of an article with its possible utility. The variation 
of the degree of utility of money in the hands of different men is 
a principle recognized alike by the political economist and the 
transcendental philosopher. 
A twenty-five-cent shin-plaster in the hands of a starving vagrant 
may bridge the awful abyss which lies between life and death—to 
• a Stewart its importance is a quantity so infinitely little that it 
