Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/513

Rh the capacity of which for working mischief has often been pointed out.

It is not probable, however, that there will be any wide departure from existing methods. Outside of the straggling ranks of the greenbackers the national-bank notes are regarded with favor. It can not be gainsaid that the period during which they have been in existence has been a very comfortable one, so far as a good currency for the people could make it so. Whatever theoretical objections there may be to the system, it has worked singularly well, is justly popular, and it is easy to understand why its probable restriction and ultimate discontinuance should be looked forward to with concern.

There has been little or nothing in the way of suggestion as to what can be done to perpetuate the national-bank issues. Various plans have been proposed for prolonging their existence; but closely adhering, as all these plans do, to the theory of a bond-secured currency, they are confined within narrow limits.

Secretary Folger and Secretary McCulloch, Comptrollers Knox and Cannon, have substantially agreed in their reports for two years past in recommending 1. The removal of the tax on bank circulation; 2. An increase of the percentage of currency which the banks may issue against bonds deposited; 3. The conversion of long bonds into three, or two and a half per cents, the latter being less likely to be withdrawn for reasons having no reference to the amount of circulation needed; and bills were introduced in both Houses of the last Congress providing for the practical application of these recommendations. Their adoption would, however, afford but temporary relief. It would have the merit, no small one it may be said, of enabling us to travel along the well-known road for a while longer, but it would only postpone the day when a solution of the currency problem must be confronted.

The true solution has, by some of the gentlemen referred to, been declared to be a reduction of the redundant revenue sufficient to retard the retirement of bonds, and finally to arrest it when their volume shall have reached, or closely approached, the amount requisite to secure the national-bank circulation.

To retard the payment of the public debt by reducing taxation would probably be expedient, it certainly would be popular; but wholly to arrest payment, and, for such a purpose, maintain the debt at a fixed sum, would be another and a very questionable matter. Moreover, a currency thus regulated as to volume would lack the important element of adaptability, or, as it is sometimes called, elasticity, for it is not likely that any one would go so far as to suggest that the bond debt should be increased and decreased in accordance with the demands for currency a method which, if not otherwise questionable, would be so clumsy and tardy in its operation as to serve but poorly. Who in such case should decide what amount of