existing stock in other countries. It would take 35 years to accomplish the result upon the most favorable hypothesis. "But the increased population of the Occidental world will make increased demand for gold exchanges and for its use in arts equal to at least $6,000,000 annually, and the annual product of gold is diminishing instead of increasing. When these elements of the circulation are all moderately provided for, there will remain perhaps $500,000 per aunum of surplus, taking 700 years to get our $350,000,000. And even this cannot be done unless Austria, Italy and Russia shall leave us to monopolize all the gold we need before they reform their own debased currency. I tell you, gentlemen, the thing cannot be done. Redemption in gold is out of the question. It is not practical financially, metallurgically, internationally, or politically; in short, it is not practical at all. "The stock of coin which forms the substratum of the world's prices is the accumulation of 50 centuries, and bar gains are being made every day which cover long periods of time. To disturb these prices and contracts by forcing the exchanges of the country to be measured by a sum of specie so vastly less than its usual measure, as $100,000,000, or even $200,000,000, would be tantamount to the violent destruction of vast interests and a wrenching of all the relations of industrial and social life. "The Senator proceeded to argue that we cannot get the gold from Europe, with which to resume, because its whole. supply is only $2,600,000,000, and on every one of these dollars stands a vast and almost toppling superstructure of credit in every conceivable form. Try to buy one sixth or seventh of that amount, and the rate of interest would go up in Europe in order to check the outflow of gold; and so the price of gold would rise until, in order to secure the amount required, we would be obliged to sell all our movables at prices that would bankrupt every interest in the country. We might get $50,000,000 or $100,000,000 possibly, but it would be at the expense of a tremendous financial convulsion abroad, reacting with equally alarming disaster to ourselves. Recollect that the problem is that of taking $350,000,000 in gold out of a fully occupied and heavily overtopped basis of only $2,600,000,000 in the Occidental world. It is not the whole stock of metal, both in silver and gold, that we can now call upon. Silver has been demonetized in several countries in Europe, and here we have so thoughtlessly worded our laws that, until we alter them, we can only pay in gold." By the act of April 12, 1873, the silver coins of the United States were declared to be a legal tender at their nominal value for any amount not exceeding five dollars in any one payment. Silver as a commodity fluctuates in value agreeably to the laws of supply and demand. The effect of the' law above mentioned was to partially demonetize silver, and hence silver coins are now (May, 1876) quoted at about 3 per cent. less than legal tender Treasury notes. There is no good end to be attained by specie resumption that could not be attained by simply making the greenback a full legal tender, as should have been done in the first instance. By making the greenback a full legal tender, the products of the country would be placed upon the same footing with foreign commodities, and that is all that is proposed to be accomplished by specie resumption. The public would then be relieved of the onerous tax imposed on gold to pay duties on imports, which redounds solely to the advantage of the bullionists and bondholders of the United States. If this method were adopted, no disturbance of the industrial or social relations of the country could possibly occur. Forced specie resumption can be accomplished only through a complete revolution of all the business and social relations of the country. This will appear from a brief consideration of the steps that will necessarily precede resumption. The circulation of the country on the 1st of April, 1876, was as follows: The lawful money reserve of the National Banks on the 1st day of October, 1875, was as follows: Legal tender Treasury notes. United States certificates of deposit. Due from reserve agents.... Specie.... Total.... $76,366,921 48,810,000 85,644,964 16,233,193 $227,055,078 8,050,328 $235,105,406 It will be seen that the lawful money reserve of the National Banks, exclusive of specie, now amounts to over two-thirds of the entire greenback circulation. The banks have still two years and a half to gather in the remainder of the outstanding greenbacks-all that are not locked up in private hoards. To call in their own circulation is an easy matter. If the banks cease discounting paper for six months there will scarcely be a bank note left in circulation. That they will do so is not to be doubted. The notes of the banks are simply evidences of their own indebtedness, and it is not to be supposed that they will voluntarily add twelve per cent. or more to their own indebtedness when they can easily avoid it. Long before the first day of January, 1879, the banks will have possession of the entire circulation of the country, both greenbacks and bank notes, and the nation will be completely stripped of a medium of exchange. The public will be helpless. The people will not possess even the poor privilege of issuing and using shinplasters and scrip, because it will be impossible to raise money enough to pay the ten per cent. tax imposed upon all notes not issued by National Banks. Forced resumption, therefore, means something more than adding 12 per cent. to the amount of every debt owed in the United States. Without a medium of exchange people will be unable to pay their debts at all; industry and trade will be completely paralyzed; and bankruptcy, distress, starvation and riot will ensue. SPECIE RESUMPTION IN ENGLAND. The experience of the people of Great Britain from 1819 to 1825, under similar circumstances, is full of instruction to the people of the United States. In 1797 the Bank of England was obliged to suspend specie payments.* Great Brit ain at the time was engaged in war with France. In 1797 large sums of gold were required abroad, and the price of gold began to rise. In September, 1799, the standard price of gold was £3, 17s., 6d. per ounce, and in June, 1800, it was £4, 58. per ounce. The war with France ended in 1815. During this period and for several years after the war the people of Great Britain were obliged to use an irredeemable paper currency for their medium of exchange. Prior to the suspension of specie payments the condition of affairs in Great Britain was gloomy indeed. Sir Archibald Alison, the historian, in speaking of the period immediately preceding suspension says: "Nor was the internal suffering of this ill-omened period inferior to its external disaster. It began with the severe commercial distress of 1793, unprecedented at that period in intensity and duration, and which was only *See Bank of England, page 92, relieved by an extensive loan to the trading classes by government; and it terminated in the dreadful monetary crisis and run upon the bank and mutiny in the fleet, in the spring of 1797, which brought the nation to the brink of ruin, and forced upon the government the necessity of suspending cash payments." The British Government and people had been vainly trying to carry on great operations with an inadequate medium of exchange. The suspension of the Bank of England led to the use of irredeemable paper money to an enormous amount, or, to use an expression now greatly ridiculed by the bullionists, "to an amount equal to the wants of trade." The result was magical. We will again quote from Sir Archibald Alison. He says: "The next eighteen years of the war, from 1797 to 1815, were, as all the world knows, the most glorious, and, taken as a whole, the most prosperous, which Great Britain had ever known. Ushered in by a combination of circumstances thé most calamitous, both with reference to external security and internal industry, it terminated in a blaze of glory and a flood of prosperity which have never, since the beginning of the world, descended upon any nation. Hardly had the run upon the bank shaken to its center the whole fabric of our commercial prosperity, and the mutinies of the Nore, Plymouth and off Cadiz paralyzed the arm of our naval defenders, when the victories of St. Vincent and Camperdown again restored to us the dominion of the sea; and ere long the thunderbolts of the Nile and Trafalgar prostrated the naval strength of the enemy, and the victories of Wel lington first arrested, and at length broke his military power. Prosperity, universal and unheard of, pervaded every department of the empire. Our colonial possessions encircled the earth-the whole West India Islands had fallen into our hands; an empire of sixty millions of men in |