State Convention—Interconvertible Notes. 241 
ment, an attempt to do away with our greenbacks, and the propo¬ 
sition has been offered to stop their being a legal tender in 1877. 
The moment that is done, the banks, in 1879, the time of resump¬ 
tion, knowing that at that time they cannot redeem their bills in 
greenbacks, but must bring out their gold—what will be the effect? 
For two years previous to 1879 the banks will be retiring every 
one of their bills which they can obtain, so that we shall probably 
not have three hundred millions circulating medium. Where are 
you going to get the money to pay one hundred cents on the dol¬ 
lar? I will state, as an example, what occurred in our county: In 
Monroe, there was a gentleman, the guardian for some children; 
he went to the bank and inquired if it would be safe to sell some 
land for one-third down, and take a mortgage for the balance. 
They said you had better be careful. If resumption takes place in 
1879, that real-estate will not be worth one-third of its present 
value. How about the debtor class? 
Dr. Steele: My friend, Professor BasconTs argument, is an in¬ 
genious one, but it is an argument that is theoretical, and not with 
reference to the facts, and yet his theory and illustration is not 
quite good. He forgets that the ocean fluctuates a great deal, and 
that there are points in the ocean where the water is a great deal 
higher than at other points, and also that the tides are swept along 
continually. I don’t care anything about that particularly. I 
put the value at a gold standard, throwing out of account the cur¬ 
rency. While we have two standards, a greenback and a gold stand¬ 
ard, hy pulling it down to a gold standard I show there is a fluct¬ 
uation then. It is a popular opinion that gold is of similar value 
all the world over. That is put down in political economy as one of 
the reasons why gold is a good standard of value, why gold makes 
good mone} r , and yet Professor Cairns shows very conclusively, I 
think, that gold is not of the same value all the world over, or 
anywhere near it. The ocean extends everywhere, but is a good 
deal higher in some places than it is in others. Gold is an object 
of value according to the cost of its production, like every other pro¬ 
duct; of course, with the modifications that are effected by the de¬ 
mand and supply. It costs a certain amount to get an ounce of 
gold here in the United States. It costs a good deal more to get' 
an ounce of gold in England than it does in the United States. It 
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