of their own products. Many laborers and producers are receiving unusual sums for their services and products, and thus present the appearance of a prosperity that is not real, and which vanishes the moment they undertake to purchase their customary comforts and enjoyments. There have been strong motives to economy, and a close consumption of articles already possessed. In this way, many have met the exigency for a time, though with a steady loss of power in the country. There has been no corresponding increase of purchasing-power of goods to be purchased, to meet this waste of consumption through the economy of the middle and lower classes.

Business is further and most seriously deranged by the fact, that, in the fluctuating state of prices, opportunity is everywhere furnished for speculation-the making of money by simple purchase and sale, with no modifications or transfers in place of the article. Such transactions serve no economic purpose, are not made in the interests of productions, and very much interfere with them. A restless, feverish feeling is begotten, quite akin to that of the gambler, and the whole field of exchange becomes one of cunning and roguery, instead of industry and patience. The loss and discouragement thus falling on productive interests are not readily calculable. Money slips into the hands of men originally worthless, or made comparatively so by the fortuitous manner of its acquisition.

Purchases are further quickened and made unnatural by an unwillingness to accumulate value in a currency which does not retain it. In and out becomes the law of business, each striving to hit the lucky moment of sale and purchase, knowing that the devil is sure to take the hindmost. Wealth is rapidly achieved, and while prices are advancing, Fortune seems always to favor-though the gifts of her right hand are for the most the plunderings of her left-the petty pilferings of individual good, or a forestalling of future prosperity. In these fluctuations of currency, all the wheels of commerce are loosened, and play with random, or rapid, or disastrous motion, giving the appearance of activity with inadequate and unsafe service. Evils disguised at the outset are found inevitable when discovered.

These derangements of production are as real and as surely attended with loss while the fever of profit and speculation prevails, as when, prices declining, failure and clamor fill the commercial world. The real efficiency and prosperity of

production are too much judged by the gains and losses of the few, her more open and noisy agents. The tendency of the present state of things is to rapidly concentrate wealth, accumulate it in the hands of favored parties; not to dispense even and secure fortune to all. Herein the way is prepared for future difficulties. Let prices decline and some will be caught under the reversed wheel of fortune, while others, unwilling to carry on a losing business, will withdraw their wealth, and leave the masses to weather the storm, unsustained by capital.

The loss of power in a vacillating currency is also seen in its inability to secure the very object which led to its depreciation, the gains of government. The greenbacks issued by the general government virtually constitute a loan of three hundred millions, without interest. But how trifling is this profit when compared with the losses which now accrue from the enhanced prices of the commodities daily required in the national service. The cost of equipping and maintaining an army has risen more than one hundred per cent., through the inflation of the currency; and this is to be endured as the extravagant compensation for a gratuitous loan. The price of gold, though often fluctuating through secondary causes, marks essentially the depreciation of a paper currency, and the consequently accumulated expenditure with which the nation is called to struggle. The cost of the war is not, indeed, to the full extent of one hundred and fifty per cent. greater than it would otherwise be, yet it is very largely and unreasonably enhanced. So far as the revenues of government are paid in gold and silver, no loss accrues, but the interest of loans payable in the same metals almost cancels this advantage. Taxation thus assumes larger proportions than would be otherwise needful, giving rise to complaint; the salaries of officers and employés of government are less adequate, and the pay and bounties of soldiers less efficient in securing recruits. A momentary advantage has thus been suffered indefinitely to increase the difficulty of future operations, and to threaten their entire suspension.

There is no greater necessity of government in a crisis like the present than unshaken confidence, unimpaired credit. But what could more certainly forfeit this than a rapid depreciation of the currency, with no power to arrest it or predict its extent? If government is to borrow on a grand scale for a long period, it must do its utmost to keep its paper, in all its forms, good.

Nor was there any real necessity for the result. Till the outbreak of the rebellion government had neglected to occupy the field of currency. It remained, therefore, open to its hand an unreaped harvest, ready to render to the nation all the gains which can arise under a sound currency. That these had been surrendered to other parties for a series of years was no reason why they should not now be resumed, when the public exigency so obviously required it. No moral or prescriptive right had been acquired to them by these parties; a first gift does not constitute a claim to a second. Capital would be compelled, in but a very limited degree, to seek new investments, and these it could readily find-government itself opening a wide door.

Government should have had courage to claim its own, and the whole of it. It ought not to have been willing to wreck the currency, and to destroy its own gains by dividing profits with the banks. It should have driven their circulations from the field, as fast as it occupied it with its own bills. Double occupation could result in nothing but mischief. It was a timid and foolish policy, which could secure nothing, and had a right to expect nothing but extended and increasing disaster.

When "greenbacks" were made a legal tender, not themselves redeemable, they relieved banks finally from the restraint of redemption. This curb thus permanently removed, both parties, private and public, stood ready to gorge the currency as fast as its decreasing value should open the way for an enlarged volume. In this race for profits, the first party, as most diffused, as least observed, least scrupulous, and least restrained, of course secures the largest share, while the public good is sacrificed by both. The banks are issuing more unredeemable bills than are sufficient to constitute the nation's currency, and the national issue flows into a swollen stream only further to choke the channels of commerce, and endanger its operations. Our national issue being nearly or quite sufficient for all the demands of business, our monetary embarrassments are referable to the claims of the banks, still urged and admitted, to weigh down the public with a second superfluous, irresponsible currency, destroying the efficiency and value of the first. The remedy is obvious, the moment we have courage to apply it.

We will not say that no currency can, but that no currency will, long preserve its stability without redemption. Discount paper and specie, and all is artificial, uncertain, un

safe, resting on the wit and will of man and not on the forces of nature. If the issue of the banks had been restricted preparatory to a national currency, there would have been little temptation to make this unredeemable. It is only over-issue that makes redemption difficult, and when there is no inducement to the one, there is no hardship in the other. The very fact, that the banks found themselves unable to meet this test of a safe currency, was an additional reason for taking from them this function of issue. The way was open for a sound redeemable national currency, and nothing but timidity in the presence of a strong moneyed interest withheld us from this great success. Nor is the path of retreat cut off. Force from circulation all bank paper, and government will soon find itself able to redeem its own.

With a given, stable, purchasing power, expressed in the standard unit of a currency, every condition of trade requires a certain amount of this medium with which to effect its transfers, and no more. Pass beyond this amount, and the superfluous sum, in its search for employment, will correspondingly depreciate the value of the whole. The amount of actual value in the currency will, under the same circumstances, be essentially the same, whether the paper issues rise above or sink below the purchasing-power of its standard unit of gold. A given amount of value is required in effecting the exchanges; only so much can be used, and, if bills are multiplied beyond this value, they will at the same time depreciate to it.

Nor is the process by which this is reached in the least recondite. Suppose a redeemable paper currency: redemption is suspended, and the banks are left at liberty to increase at will their issues. This it is their interest to do. Borrowers find easy accommodation. Business receives an impulse; speculators begin to purchase and rely on the banks for aid. Prices rise in the commodities selected; sales follow with profit, and the spirit of liberal and speculative outlay becomes general. Money is readily obtained by all, and there is, therefore, nothing to check the rise of prices. A rise at one point calls forth and justifies a similar rise at another. Enhanced nominal prices drink up the new issues, and make way for more. All are able to meet their bank indebtedness, since their own returns are correspondingly great. Thus there is a delusive appearance of prosperity, and the depreciation of the currency goes on with all the losses marked in the earlier part of this article.

These truths are so obvious, we should not have urged them at so much length, were it not for the importance of the conclusions that flow from them, and the frequency with which they are overlooked.

The chief reason-the reason which gives play to all others, and without which the fluctuation to which they give rise would be trifling-is the great excess of our mixed currency, national and private, over the real elements of business. We must settle satisfactorily the reason why legaltender notes are not at par with gold, or we cannot apply the remedy. If success is all that is wanted to reduce the premium on gold, let us fight the harder; we have no case against the banks. If, however, success alone, without a decided reduction in the amount of circulation, can never restore the currency, then our demand holds good, that that portion of it, about one-half or three-fifths, not supplied by the nation, should be removed, leaving the remainder no such relation to the wants of business, as to raise it to par, and make redemption easy.

That the depreciation of "greenbacks" is not chiefly, or in any very important degree, due to the want of trust in the stability of our government, is seen in the fact, that currency would be less affected by this cause than would loans; yet these are secured with comparative readiness, while other investments, as in real estate, still remain open at prices but slightly in advance of those prevalent before the rise of gold. Those who do distrust the government, and are opposed to it, constantly lodge the funds gathered in speculation in such and kindred investments; but loyal citizens still loan the government with the opportunity before them. The difficulty with which loans are secured, we claim, measures the element of distrust, and marks it as much less than a hundred and forty per cent., the present premium of gold.

The currency is evidently less affected by the mere element of trust than are loans, since these are permanently held in large amounts, while "greenbacks" are in constant transition, neither accumulating in large sums, nor long remaining in the hands of individuals. That, indeed, must be intense distrust which would not allow one to pass the certificates of currency in the rapid traffic of the day. Loans evince plainly that there is no such distrust.

Nor has the vacillation of gold at all kept pace with the prospects of the war. We have just closed a great election; the policy of the government is certainly as hopeful