(6) Currency certificates.
All of these kinds of paper money, as well as the silver coin, circulate on a par with gold; their utilities being equal, and the demand for money being an indiscriminate one, their values must be equal. As a domestic money, gold cannot have a higher value than the issues of paper money; though it may, however, have a greater value as a commodity for foreign shipment. It is not the fact that these other forms of money may be exchanged directly or indirectly for gold at the United States Treasury that makes their values equal to gold value, but the fact that their utilities are equal. They would remain of equal value with gold if the Treasury did not exchange gold for them, so long as any gold remained in circulation as money. A gold reserve, however, is necessary as a precaution in a gold-standard system, but only to the extent of the probable demand for gold for export.
The system as a whole is a ridiculous one, and nearly all its features are wasteful and uneconomic.
Gold coin, as a circulating medium, is not as good as paper; it has a high subjective value, and such use of it is wasteful; it should be kept as a reserve for export purposes. The gold certificates are better, but are also wasteful; since only a sufficient reserve is needed to meet possible demands for export, and this would be far less than dollar for dollar.
The silver coin is open to the same objection as the gold coin as a circulating medium, and the silver certificates to the same objection as the gold certificates, and to the further objection that the silver deposited to secure them is of no use whatever, even as a reserve, for no one would demand silver bullion of the government in exchange for paper money at the present coinage value, when they could purchase nearly twice as much in the open market for the same money. Unless, then, our money should fall in value some 50 per cent., not an ounce of silver will ever be called for at the Treasury in exchange for the paper issues based thereon; and the silver deposits are merely a clumsy and costly method of limiting the volume of the paper money.
The greenbacks, or United States notes, are economical, and if they were variable in volume and under proper control would be a good money.
The national bank-notes are wrong in principle, in allowing private corporations to make a profit from the issuance of paper money. This objection is of no practical importance, at present, as the restrictions and high bond prices have taken away practically all the profit to the banks on the issues, but in so doing have also taken away about the only merit such notes ever had, that of elasticity of volume to some extent. This was a most doubtful merit at best, as the issues were governed by considerations of private profit and not by any desire to make money of stable value. Whatever may have been the merits of the national banking system in the past, the war necessities of the government which gave birth to it, have long since passed away. It can be viewed now only in the light of its present usefulness, and as an issuer of money it is of no use whatever.
Paper money received by deposit of bonds instead of bullion is economical and correct in principle, if controlled in the interests of the public, and not left at the mercy of men whose private interests may be opposed to the public welfare. No such control of the volume of the money is attempted in the case of the national bank-notes, and they are no more secure than are greenbacks, since the ultimate foundation of both is the national credit in one form or another.
Of all our different kinds of money, the only ones susceptible of change in volume to meet the varying demands of commerce are, under existing laws, the gold coin and certificates. These can be changed only by the import or export of gold, or by the product of the mines over and above the amount needed for the arts and sciences, and which must be divided with other gold-standard countries.
The national bank-notes are theoretically elastic in volume, but actually are not so, to any appreciable extent. They require for their issue the purchase and deposit with the United States Treasurer of government bonds,—now at a large premium,—are subject to other charges and restrictions, and are not, as a rule, profitable enough to the banks to cause any increase of the issues above that required by law, except in urgent necessity, and that to a very limited extent.