preciated currency, and claims that we must return to a specie basis in the near future to restore prosperity. Our legislation should, of course, be shaped in that direction which will place our money upon a substantial and unquestioned foundation; but that we can return speedily to specie payment without producing insolvency and ruin to the agricultural, manufacturing and other legitimate industries of the people, I do not believe. Speedy resumption must only result in giving capital another opportunity of still tightening its grip upon the labor and industry of the country. Whatwe want is a low rate of interest, and so controlled that no combination of capital can increase it, and when this is done it matters little whether we resume specie payment this year or ten years hence.

Among the many objects of a republican government, none are of more importance than the protection of property and the issuing of money to measure or represent that property. Where there is no property there are no people; and where there are no people no money is needed. Why do we need money which we are obliged to redeem in something else? Money is convertible into any property, and that is its true function or office. I have no objection to the redeemable in gold and silver feature, provided only a dollar in paper is issued by the Government for one of metal in her vaults, giving to the people a strictly mercantile currency, except that there is not half enough for the business of the world-but a gold base for money, as practiced by this and nearly all other countries, is a delusion, a cheat and a lie. Gold, as a basis, says the capitalist and the speculator-gold-bearing bonds and the issuing of paper representatives based thereon. In this gold base and gold bond lies hidden the most dangerous system of money ever instituted. When business is prosperous and labor all employed, then it matters but little whether the base of money be gold or the faith and credit of the Government; but when stagnation in business ensues, when the storm sets in, gold is hoarded, and the people are bankrupt and ruined. Witness continental money; witness the panics of 1837 and 1857. The mouey was then all based on gold. We hear much said about resumption. Who are asking it? Gold-gamblers, stockgamblers, and speculators in the labor and industry of the people. Fix a time to resume, as has been done by Congress, and these sharpers will look forward to the time with delight. They can

demand gold, well knowing that it isn't there, and a rich harvest is theirs at the expense of the nation's industries. What the people of this country want is a sound currency, like the Government greenback, so called, with a fixed, low rate of interest, based upon the precious metals dollar for dollar--mercantile currency-or upon the faith and credit of the country-paper money, pure and simple -or partly upon each, as the needs of business may require. Now, if the people of the United States allow this greenback currency to be retired and destroyed, and private parties to give us a currency, such as we formerly used in the states, and which was never reliable, they will demonstrate most clearly, to my mind, their incapacity to protect their true and vital interests, if not their want of capacity for self-government.

When money is made merchandise, it is no longer currency. It cannot be a just and equitable measure of the value of property, unless it has a fixed and unvarying value in itself. To permit money to be bought and sold like commodities, and the rich to gather it into their hands to hold for extortionate rates of interest, the entire currency of the world would not supply the necessary wants of business in the United States. Under just, monetary laws, there is no reason why money should be scarce, when there is an abundance of property susceptible of representation and capable of amply securing it.

Walker, in his Science of Wealth, says: "A great conflict between labor and capital is now imminent throughout the civilized world, but if there shall ever be a good and satisfactory solution of the great question at issue, it will be because the capitalist and laborer have been educated to understand the laws of wealth, and the true relations between the two great competing, but not antagonistic forces of production." There is no antagonism between labor and capital so far as production is concerned. The evil and antagonism exists in an unjust distribution of the profits of the partnership of these forces. The capitalist says, practically; I will take all the profits, except what is absolutely required to keep the laborer in health and strength to perform my work, and to rear a family so that capital shall have a full supply of laborers in the future. How to justly distribute the profits of labor, and honestly protect the industries of the people against the selfish greed of capital, is the coming question. It is a question which interests every laborer

and industrial worker in the land, for it determines to a great extent "what he shall eat, what he shall drink, and wherewithall shall he be clothed," what shall be the shelter for himself and family, what he shall sell his produce for, and what shall be the price of that which he buys. The fight will come between labor and capital on the question of distribution-between the capitalist who loans and gathers in his ten per cent., and those who labor in the avenues of industry and barely earn three per cent. Money now rules, labor will then.

Capital must be taught that it shall not accumulate in interest, on the average, more, if as much as a like sum invested in productive industry. The rate of interest should be so low that capital will seek the legitimate channels of industry, commerce and trade, and this, in my judgment cannot be done except by the General Government supplying the people with money at low rates of interest and upon such security as they can give. Homesteads, improved real estate, and possibly other property, should be as good security as United States bonds, upon which money could be issued or loaned. But says one, would you have the Government regulate interest? I would. What are the objects of Government but to protect all the people in their just rights-to give to every man a right at least, to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," neither of which he has under the present rates of interest, except the former, and that even would be denied him if necessary to increase the percentage of gains to capital.

Various societies for the better protection of the producing classes are being organized throughout the United States, and to some extent this combined effort will better their condition, enabling them to buy and sell to better advantage, increase their products and better their profits, but as well might these combinations of laborers expect to change the natural laws governing the growth of crops, or those of health and life, as to expect to materially better their condition with this mill-stone of rapidly accumulating interest, weighing and pressing them down. So long as this high rate of interest continues, the only ray of hope for the laborer is, that he may be allowed to live and work at the will of capital, a slave to those who, judged by intelligence and every element of the best manhood, are often his inferiors.

Senator Windham, chairman of the Senate Committee on Trans

portation, in his report to the Senate says: "That a new department should be organized, styled the department of industry. This bureau should exercise appropriate supervision over the agricultural, manufacturing, mining and commercial interests of the country. But the limits assigned to this article will not permit a statement of the reasons which demand the creation of a new department. Let the first step be taken and its advantages will demonstrate the necessity for the more perfect organization of the great industrial interests of the nation. The producers and the workingmen of the country, who constitute its real wealth and power, will then demand and receive a recognition of their rights at the hands of Congress."

When this bureau is established, as I hope it soon will be, its first work should be to recommend some feasible plan by which the aggregation of capital by interest shall be controlled, and the great producing industries, the real wealth and strength of a people, be enabled to obtain money at a rate of interest which will stimulate and encourage these foundation interests, and better the condition of those who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow.

In conclusion. 1. Money being national, its value should be controlled by the General Government, and this can only be effectually done by regulating the interest which it may annually accumulate.

2. Money being instituted to represent property and facilitate the exchange of products, it should be based upon property and the honor, faith and credit of the government.

3. The rate of interest determimes the proportion of profits which shall be distributed between the two great forces of production-labor and capital-and a high rate tends to the accumulation in the hands of the few and to deprive those engaged in agriculture and the various industrial avocations of a just share arising from their labor.

4. In proportion as interest is decreased, labor and capital are increased; legitimate industries are stimulated, given new life and vigor; speculation is checked; labor is fully employed, and the country is prosperous.

5. The amount of money should only be limited by the wants of business and the ample security which the property, faith and honor of the Government can give; and the rate of interest should be

fixed and stable, and so guarded and controlled by the General Government as to prevent extortion of a higher rate by combined capital, and such rate should be as low as the annual increase of wealth by the channels of productive industry.

The prosperity of a nation, socially, morally, and financially, must depend upon the success of those engaged in productive industries, and their condition can never be hopeful and flattering until there is a more just and equitable distribution of the weatlh which their labor creates. The capabilities of this great country for production can hardly be computed; but, if we ever expect to reach our utmost possibilities in that direction, our statesmen and philanthropists must devise some plan similar to those I have here feebly outlined, so that capital shall be changed from a despotic master to a valuable servant, and the great producing forces of labor and capital work harmoniously together, both in production and distribution, or the source of all wealth-the lands of America-will, in the near future, be in the possession of the few, as in England to-day.

"Who owneth America's soil?

Is it he who graspeth the hard red gold;
Whose glittering gains are by millions told;
Who bindeth his slaves to the woof and loom,
And chaineth their souls in a living tomb,-

The tomb of hopeless toil?
Not he, not he-by Heaven!

"Who shieldeth America's land?

Is it he who counteth his ships by scores;

Who plucketh his gains from a thousand shores;

Who buyeth and selleth, and worketh not,

And holdeth in pride what by fraud he got—
With hard and griping hand?

Not he, not he-by Heaven!

"Who guardeth America's right?
Is it he who eateth the orphan's bread,

And crusheth the poor with his grinding tread;

Who flingeth his banknote lies abroad,

And buildeth to worship a golden God,

A shrine to Mammon's might?

Not he, not he-by Heaven!