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Show In Terms of 1876 and 1789 It is to be hoped that congress this winter will take full advantage of historical warnings such as the following, which, strange as it seems, is what Andrew D. White said j'n 1876 in speaking of the extreme French inflation of 1789: "But the most curious thing evolved out of all this chaos is a NEW SYSTEM OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. In the speeches about this time we begin to find it declared that, after all, a depreciated currency is a blessing; that gold and silver form an unsatisfactory standard for measuring measur-ing value; that it is a good thing to have a currency that will not go out of the kingdom, and which separates France from other nations; that thus shall manufactures be encouraged encour-aged ; that commerce with other nations is a curse, and every hindrance to it a blessing; that the laws of political economy, however, applicable in other times, are not applicable appli-cable to that particular time, and, however operative in other nations, are not operative in France; that the ordinary ordi-nary rules of political economy are perhaps suited to the minions of despotism, but not to the enlightened inhabitants of France at the close of the 18th century; that the whole present state of things, so far from being an evil, is a blessing. bless-ing. "With the masses of the people, the purchase of every article of supply became a speculation. Says the most brilliant bril-liant of apologists of French revolutionary statesmanship: ' 'Commerce was dead ; betting took its place.' " |