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Show A Country Out Of Joint THE New York Times, the other day, received a dispatch from Paris announcing that American tourists would this year spend $100,000,000 in Europe, and the greater part of that in Paris, whereupon the Times felt it necessary nec-essary to publish an editorial defending the tourists tour-ists for the expenditure. That all seems most unnecessary. If a man or woman has surplus money and pleases to spend it abroad, that is but one of the prerogatives preroga-tives of citizenship in this country. It is not that of which people complain. But most of H those tourists sailed away in foreign ships and iH will return in foreign ships, and the money they ,H pay in fares and tips will all go abroad, which H ought not to be. It the same way with what H is sent abroad and what is brought in from for- H eign lands and the whole amounts to quite $250,- H 000,000 per annum. Could the savings banks of H New York City receive that sum, they would H willingly pay $10,000,000, probably $12,000,000 for M the use of it, and the original $250,000,000 would H likewise be here. What that means can be un- H derstood by remembering that when the big H New York plungers, four years ago, precipitated H the panic upon the country, there was a frantic H rush to Europe to borrow $100,000,000 to tide H the trouble over. Had our country been handling H our own freights and passengers for four years H prior to that panic, it would have had on hand H ten times the amount needed to meet the emer- H gency. H r And still, let any one arise m congress and H propose to expend annually for a few years the H amount now lost in interest, in order to restore H our merchant marine and to extend trade in for- H eign countries, especially in South America, M which our people should expand in, and from M all sides will come the protest that members of, ' congress will not be4 parties to a 'plan to give' men already rich more money. H That rich foreign ship-owners are being made richer, annually by" the stupidity which on that H subject rules congress, does not count with M those Reubens. H Again, wo aro sending quite $300,000,000 m abroad annually to pay interest on American se- curities held in Europe, while at home money is so difficult to get with which to carry on M needed enterprises, that it has ceased to be a M measure of values or a sufficient medium of ex- M change. Suppose tho government should issue ! a billion of one and one-half pei- cent gold bonds M in small denominations, mako tho bonds of the size of greenbacks or national bank notes, that M people might use them as money, pay the ex- penses of tho government with them-and uso tho money received in taxes and customs in H buying those bonds held abroad, Is it not clear H that the money now sent abroad in Interest would grow less and less and very soon cease altogether? And that saving would in ten years M fill our country with money. Then no more straw enterprises should bo permitted to issue and sell bonds, because they gravitate to tho M old world and the interest has to be sent annu- ally, which is a drain upon the money of this M country which should not be permitted. H It would not hurt American bankers to issue M those low-rato bonds, for business would in-- crease so rapidly that they would loan more money than ever. As .it is the volume of money Jt does not begin to keep up with tho Increased volume of business. It is a shame that with all 'm the yield of farm, factory and mine, with all H tho balance of trade in our favor, there is no h sensible increase in the volume of money," as is JM shown by the fact that when any sudden call Is S made for a large amount, the only expedient H seems to be to Issue more Interest-bearing bonds 'H to be sold abroad. M A new financial system is the one great need iJ of the United States. JK |
