the retailer what is as good as cash to him, and the manufacturer receives virtually cash from the wholesaler.

How would all this be possible were it not that the bankers had collected the idle money of other people and were able to lend it out to good advantage? The farm would go unplanted, the ground would go untilled, there would be no crops to yield a profit.

That's where the bank helps the farmers.

Importance of branch banks.-One great advantage, it appears to me, might be derived from the general introduction of a system of branch banks. It would tend to equalize interest more effectually than any other thing. It has worked so in Canada. Canada has a very wide extent of country. It is more widely extended than our country is, and yet, under their system of branch banks, the rates of interest in the most remote corners are practically the same as in the great centers. The banks in the great centers send out currency to their branches to be loaned under the direction of their own officers, and can thereby afford to lend it at terms little or no greater than are given to their customers at home. The independent local bank, on the other hand, however, takes advantage of its surrounding conditions, and charges all the interest it can under the circumstances.-Judge Robert S. Taylor, before the House Committee on Banking and Currency.

Government and banks.-What does government do when it authorizes a bank to do business-when it gives a bank a charter? It enables a quantity of scattered capital, which would otherwise be quite ineffective, to come together, and then helps its business, as it were, by advertising it. It certifies that the bank is organized under a certain system; that there was so much capital invested; that it is under a certain inspection, and all that. Having done that, whom does it help in the greatest degree? Why, it helps the thousands of people who want to use that thing for convenience. They are the ones who are helped. The people who have put their capital in it are helped somewhat, but they could have used their capital in a thousand different ways. They did not have to put it into that bank, and probably if they had not any banks they could have lent it more profitably to individual persons; but the community would not have been nearly so conveniently served, and that capital would not have been gathered together from its different sources to serve them in that way.-ExSecretary of Treasury Charles S. Fairchild, before the House Committee on Banking and Currency.

Redemptions in gold of United States notes and Treasury notes and exports of gold by fiscal years, 1879-1897.

The total reported production of barley in 1897 was 66,685,127 bushels, being 3,010,096 bushels, or 4.3 per cent, less than was reported for 1896.

The total area of production was 2,719,116 acres, against 2,950,539 acres in 1896, a decrease of 231,423 acres, or 7.8 per cent..

The total value of the crop was $25,142,139, against $22,491,241 in 1896, an increase of $2,650,898, or 11.8 per cent.

The area under barley in 1897 was the smallest recorded since 1886, in which year it amounted to 2,652,957 acres. The yield per acre, however, is high, being 24.5 bushels, against 23.6 bushels in 1896, and an average of 22.5 bushels for the ten years 1887 to 1896. Only twice within that period, namely, in 1891 and 1895, was the average reported for 1897 exceeded.

The average value per bushel, 37.7 cents, is 5.4 cents per bushel higher than the average for 1896. The average value per acre is $9.25, against $7.62 in 1896.

BLAINE ON FREE COINAGE.

The silver forces are fond of quoting the late James G. Blaine · in support of their contention in favor of free coinage, but in a thoroughly dishonest way. During the campaign of 1896 they cir

culated millions of copies of what purported to be Mr. Blaine's expression in favor of free coinage, taken from his speech in the Senate February 7, 1878. This extract was made from the opening paragraph in his speech, but only so much of it was printed by the silver men as suited their purpose; for immediately after the conclusion of the opening sentences, which were intended merely to outline his text, he says: "If, therefore, silver has been demonetized, I am in favor of remonetizing it. If its coinage has been prohibited, I am in favor of ordering it to be resumed. If it has been restricted, I am in favor of ordering it to be enlarged.” In the very next paragraph, Mr. Blaine said:

"To remonetize it now, as though the facts and circumstances of that day were surrounding us, is to willfully and blindly deceive ourselves. If our demonetization were the only cause for the decline in the value of silver, then remonetization would be its proper and effectual cure. But other causes, quite beyond our control, have been far more potentially operative than the simple fact that Congress prohibited its further coinage. As legislators, we are bound to take cognizance of these causes. The demonetization of silver in the great German Empire and the consequent partial or well-nigh complete, suspension of coinage in the governments of the Latin Union, have been the leading dominant causes for the rapid decline in the value of silver."

Mr. Blaine then went on:

"The question before Congress, then-sharply defined in the pending House bill-is, whether it is now safe and expedient to offer free coinage to the silver dollar of 4121⁄2 grains, with the mints of the Latin Union closed and Germany not permitting silver to be coined as money. At current rates of silver, the free coniage of the dollar containing 4121⁄2 grains, worth in gold about 92 cents, gives an illegitimate profit to the owner of the bullion, enabling him to take 92 cents worth of it to the mint and get it stamped as coin and force his neighbor to take it for a full dollar. This is an undue, an unfair advantage which the Government has no right to give to the owner of the silver bullion, and which defrauds the man who is forced to take the dollar. * * .

"What gain, therefore, should we make, for the circulating medium, if, on opening the gate for silver to flow in, we open a still wider gate for gold to flow out? If I were to venture upon a dictum upon the silver question, I should declare that until Europe remonetizes silver we cannot afford to coin a dollar as low as 4121⁄2 grains.

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"Yet it is almost mathematically demonstrable that the same effect will follow from the coinage of an inferior silver dollar. As

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surances from empirics and scientists in finance that remonetization of the former dollar will at once and permanently advance its value to par with gold are worth little in the face of opposing and controlling facts. That remonetization will have a considerable effect in advancing the value of the silver dollar is very probable, but not enough to overcome the difference now existing a difference resulting from causes independent of our control on this continent.

"I believe the public creditor can afford to be paid in any silver dollar that the United States can afford to coin and circulate. We have forty thousand millions of property in this country, and a wise self-interest will not permit us to overturn its relations by seeking for an inferior dollar wherewith to settle the honest demand of any creditor. The question might be different from a merely selfish point of view if, on paying the dollar to the public creditor, it would disappear after performing that function. But the trouble is that the inferior dollar you pay the public creditor remains in circulation to the exclusion of the better dollar. That which you pay at home will stay here; that which you send abroad I will come back.

"The interest of the public creditor is indissolubly bound up with the interest of the whole people. Whatever affects him affects us all; and the evil that we might inflict upon him by paying an inferior dollar would recoil upon us with a vengeance as manifold as the aggregate wealth of the Republic transcends the comparatively small limits of our bonded debt. Remember that our aggregate wealth is always increasing, and that our bonded debt is steadily growing less. If paid in a good silver dollar the bondholder has nothing to complain of. If paid in an inferior silver dollar he has the same grievance that will be uttered still more plaintively by the holder of the national bank bill, by the pensioner, by the day laborer, and by the countless host of the poor, whom we have with us always, and on whom the most distressing effect of inferior money will be ultimately precipitated."

With such expressions from Mr. Blaine against free coinage independent of the co-operation of other nations, it will hardly afford the silver forces much comfort to draw this great statesman into the controversy. And incidentally Mr. Blaine answers many of the arguments used to-day by the advocates of free coinage..

BONDS OF THE UNITED STATES.

History of their Issue and Amounts.

According to the statement of the public debt published October 31, 1865, the interest-bearing debt of the United States on that date was as follows:

Besides the interest-bearing debt then outstanding there was a considerable debt bearing no interest, as follows:

And the debt, less cash in the Treasury, was.... 2,739,596,758 80