Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/513

Rh said that the influence of a depreciated currency does not raise general prices by more than the amount of gold premium, if the depreciation of the currency remains steady at the same point. But the difficulty is that the depreciation of the currency does not remain steady at the same point. You might just as well say that when we have a heavy fall of snow late in the winter or early in the spring, there will be no freshets in the rivers, for if the snow does not melt it will not increase the volume of the water. That is perfectly correct; but the difficulty is that the snow will melt, just as an irredeemable and inflated currency will fluctuate and will depreciate. Our experience shows us that the premium on gold in this country has not remained at the same point for a single week, scarcely for a single day.

The Senator from Illinois [Mr. ] said that he thought the same law was governing the price of an imported article that was governing the price of an exported article in the case of a depreciated and fluctuating currency. Now, sir, I am going to show that the same law does not govern these two things. Let us see how it works. The importer or the wholesale merchant in New York, when putting up his goods for sale, will first add to the gold price the premium on gold. That is universally conceded. But he knows that the premium on gold or the discount on the currency fluctuates, and that if the latter be inflated it will certainly depreciate. If he sells on credit, however short that credit may be, he runs this risk: that the sum he receives in paper money for his goods will not represent the same gold value which the same sum represented at the time when the sale was made; and here an important element comes into the calculation of prices, which has been left out by all the Senators who, taking the opposite view, have discussed this subject. It is the element of risk. The importer,