Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 4, 2025
The public debt of Louisiana rose from $14,000,000 in 1868 to $48,000,000 in 1871, with a local debt of $31,000,000. Cities, towns, and counties sold bonds by the bale. The debt of New Orleans increased twenty-five fold and that of Vicksburg a thousandfold. A great deal of the debt was the result of fraudulent issues of bonds or over-issue.
'The guest who is making his bow to the lady of the house, was formerly secretary of one of our railroad companies. The stock had gone up one hundred per cent. above par, on the strength of the manager's report, exhibiting the prosperous condition of the company's affairs, when an over-issue of stock, to the amount of two millions of dollars, was detected.
The over-issue of paper currency to make good the gaps in the National Finance, now slowly destroyed the credit of the Central Government and made the suspension of specie payment a mere matter of time.
Peel's objection, which did not prevail, chiefly rested on the danger of the Bank of England closing its branches in its own interests, in order to check the demand for cash. Though his fears were not literally realised, experience disclosed the danger of country banks multiplying unduly, and, by their over-issue of notes, causing a severe drain upon the Bank of England for gold.
To provide against the possibility of such an over-issue as might exhaust the area of standard land at command of the State, it is enacted that, failing this, the holder may select his portion of State domain wherever he pleases, at twelve years' purchase of the rental; but in point of fact these provisions are theoretically rather than practically important, since not one note in a hundred is ever redeemed or paid off.
It should be noted that China is still on a Copper Standard basis, the people's buying and selling being conducted in multiples of copper cent-pieces of which there has been an immense over-issue, the latest figures showing that there are no less than 22,000,000,000 1-cent, ten cash pieces in circulation or 62 coins per head of population roughly twenty-five millions sterling in value, or 160,000 tons of copper!
The over-issue of paper currency to make good the gaps in the National Finance, now slowly destroyed the credit of the Central Government and made the suspension of specie payment a mere matter of time.
These were inevitable consequences. Hence the failure of the scheme of Law, and the ruin of all who embarked in it, owing to a change in public opinion as to the probable success of the scheme, and, secondly, the over-issue of money. By this great folly, four hundred thousand families were ruined, or greatly reduced; but the government got rid of about eight hundred millions of debts.
Much of the trouble is due also to the extravagance and reckless waste of our people, which, though owing in some degree to our want of good manners and good taste, are directly traceable to the stimulus given to expense by the over-issue of artificial money.
The bursting of the Mississippi bubble, of course, inflamed the nation against the government, and the Duke of Orleans was execrated, for his agency in the business had all the appearance of a fraud. But he was probably deluded with others, and hoped to free the country from its burdens. The great blunder was in the over-issue of notes when there was no money to redeem them.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking