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Show I The Currency Problem NO sign comes from Mr. Aldrich yet that he ha matured any currency system which he thinks will satisfy the wants of the country, and it is foreshadowed that the President will ask Congress to authorize the issuing and sale of $500,000,000 of bonds, to complete the I ' Panama canal. Would a business man with credit unlimited do that in his business? There is in the country $346,000,000 in greenbacks, that is doing more work than any double that amount in gold, and they have been ever since specie payment pay-ment was restored after the war. At that time the whole available wealth of the nation was not , one-third what it now is, and since then the popu lation has doubled. Now the interest on $500,000,-000 $500,000,-000 at 4 per cent, in twenty-five years equals the principal. Why should the people in the coming twenty-five years pay out that billion of dollars? Why would not the amount do just as well if, put out in greenbacks, to be retired at the convenience of the Government? Is not the bond proposition in the interest of Mr. Aldrich and the national banks? It has that look, surely. It looks as though it was to be impossible to supply any plan-of plan-of currency regulation, that was not founded on an interest-bearing debt, the people to be perpetually per-petually assessed to meet the interest. We wonder what is the matter with Western and Southern Senators and Representatives that none of them dare point to the loss of exports to half the people of the earth and demand that our product of silver shall be restored to its old place. What would the statesmen of France do in such an emergency? Gold is but fair weather money. At the first sign of national distress or fear it disappears, and then it takes too much of It to buy food for the people. |