A throw round them, the National Government could not directly commit itself to their use. It must have an institution of its own creation to stand between it and all other issuers throughout the country-one which would in the course of business receive the notes and credits of all other issuers in the payment of the public revenues, on deposit, and in the payment of its bills. The National Bank would prefer to have its bills paid and revenues collected in the issues of other banks rather than its own, as in ratio as the former were received its own would remain in circulation. It would protect itself against loss by demanding that all balances arising in its favor be daily discharged. By the provisions described the issues of every bank throughout the country, in good standing, would, in effect, be received in the payment of the revenues, payments being made in kind, as it were, in the symbol of the particular product of the section where they were collected. currency common alike to Government and people would thus be provided; a currency never in excess; always retired by its use; a currency which, through the value of its constituent, would wholly supersede gold, metallic money, as the ordinary instrument of exchange. If gold were wanted by the Government or people it would be supplied by the banks out of their reserves. With a National Bank restricted in its discounts to bills of exchange, the Government would have no more occasion to concern itself about the solvency of the currency than about the solvency of the makers of bills upon which it was based; no more than about the solvency of drawers of exchange, or of railroad or manufacturing corporations, as no currency that was not retired by its use, the crucial test, could get into circulation. Successful issuers should no more be compelled to make up the losses of the unsuccessful, than successful merchants should make up those of the unsuccessful and incompetent ones. If the principle upon which the national banking system is based be correct, then Government should in the same way place itself behind every industry and enterprise in the land. With a National Bank full and adequate provision for a sound currency would be made previous to its issue. It is easy to prevent the perpetration of a great wrong. It may be impossible to repair its effects. We are oppressed by a great wrong that should never have been committed. Jackson did his work so well that as a people we have never recovered our sense or reason, so completely was the example of the past effaced from memory. That we should have dethroned Hamilton and put Jackson in his place as our oracle and mentor in the matter of money shows our immeasurable folly, and how incapable we are to deal with matters that most intimately concern our highest welfare. The necessary consequence has been that our history, so far as money has been concerned, from the time of Jackson has been one of alternations, on a vast scale, of farce and tragedy. Why should not a return be made to a currency common alike to government and people a currency founded in the very nature of things, the soundness and value of which have been demonstrated by precedents of forty years, and which can only be provided by a National Bank? In the way stand the history and traditions of a great party, now broken into two wings, that its creation transcends the power of the Government, its existence being incompatible with the liberties of the people. There is no evidence that either wing has receded from a position which both in common so long held. With the Sound Money wing of the Democracy, the creation of a National Bank would be an act of "Paternalism" by no means to be permitted. With it salvation is to come, if at all, from accident, from drifting, not from forecast or method. The Free Coinage wing wants money that costs little, the less the better, but issued in ratio to the needs of the people. The money of banks could be had only at its value. Hence all of it must be issued by the Government. The great party now in control insists, with plenty of unmeaning platitudes, that the present situation be maintained; that all the money we have is good money, and that all that is wanted is a little patching by which its value may be no longer " threatened." Should not the use of such an ominous word have suggested to its chief that money the value of which can be threatened is not good money, and the remedy for money that is not good? With him all kinds.now in circulation, gold, silver, issues of Government and banks, have an equal standing in the courts of reason and law. There is no hint of reformation in its proper sense. So far as Congress is concerned its attention is engrossed by the crowning piece of tomfoolery of modern times, Bimetallism, the Senate, by unanimous vote, declaring itself in its favor, and the House by a vote of 279 to 4. In the meantime matters are steadily going from bad to worse. The tariff is its pan acea for all evils. It is well to have the National Government self supporting. Had it been so for the last four years, the greater part of the legal tender notes could have been safely locked up in the Treasury. But the new tariff, while it will improve, will not restore the situation. Without a reform of the currency, the clouds, now deep on the horizon, will only grow darker and more portentous. One that is neither capital nor the symbol of capital always exacts a penalty, and when issued on a vast scale, an enormous one. The penalty is not so much the final catastrophe as the long and lingering illness which necessarily precedes it. There is one bright spot on the horizon. The Secretary of the Treasury is a man trained in affairs, and should know the difference between palaver and "cash down." He may not be a Hamilton, but if he restore the work of Hamilton he will be second only to his illustrious predecessor in deserving and receiving the grateful homage of an emancipated people. NOTES AND THE SILVER RECOINAGE IN ENGLAND. In 1696 the silver currency of England (the only one then in use) had become so reduced in value, from clipping and wear, as to cause the greatest inconvenience in all the operations of society. The coins in use, no matter how light, could still be used in the payment of debts and of the taxes due the government. The latter attempted for a long time to correct the evil, by causing large quantities of silver to be coined of the standard weight and fineness; but as the old coins, with one-quarter or one-fifth less of pure metal, were used as currency equally with the new, the latter were immediately taken up and melted down, or exported at their value as bullion or merchandise, so that no progress whatever was made in remedying an evil which had become well-nigh insupportable. 66 "The financiers of that age," says Macaulay, in his graphic picture of it, seem to have expected that the new money, which was excellent, would soon displace the old money, which was much impaired. Yet any man of plain understanding might have known that, when the State treats perfect coin and light coin as of equal value, the perfect coin will not drive the light coin out of circulation, but will itself be driven out. A clipped crown, on English ground, went as far in the payment of a tax or a debt as a milled crown. But the milled crown, as soon as it had been flung into the crucible or carried across the channel, became much more valuable than the clipped crown. It might therefore have been predicted, as confidently as anything can be predicted which depends on the human will, that the inferior pieces would remain in the only market in which they could fetch the same price as the superior pieces; and that the superior pieces would take some form or fly to some place in which some advantage could be derived from their superiority. "The politicians of that age, however, generally overlooked these very obvious considerations. They marvelled exceedingly that everybody should be so perverse as to use light money in preference to good money. In other words, they marvelled that nobody chose to pay twelve ounces of silver when ten ounces would serve the turn. The horse at the Tower still paced his rounds. Fresh wagon-loads of choice money still came forth from the mill; and still they vanished as fast as they appeared. Great masses were melted down; great masses exported; great masses hoarded; but scarcely one new piece was found in |