A Letter to Grover Cleveland Part 6

Then the bank notes will be re-issued, by discounting new notes, and will go into circulation again; to be again brought back, at the end of another three months, and redeemed, by being accepted in payment of the new notes discounted.

In this way the bank notes will be continually re-issued, and redeemed, in the greatest amounts that can be kept in circulation long enough to earn such an amount of interest as will make it an object for the bankers to issue them.

Each of these notes, issued for circulation, if known to be solvent, will always have the same value in the market, as the same nominal amount of coin. And this value is a just one, because the notes are in the nature of a lien, or mortgage, upon so much property of the bankers as is necessary to pay the notes, and as can be taken by law, and sold, and the proceeds applied to their payment.

There is no danger that any more of these notes will be issued than will be wanted for buying and selling property at its true and natural market value, relatively to coin; for as the notes are all made legally payable in coin on demand, if they should ever fall below the value of coin in the market, the holders of them will at once return them to the banks, and demand coin for them; _and thus take them out of circulation_.

The bankers, therefore, have no motive for issuing more of them than will remain long enough in circulation, to earn so much interest as will make it an object to issue them; the only motive for issuing them being to draw interest on them while they are in circulation.

The bankers readily find how many are wanted for circulation, by the time those issued remain in circulation, before coming back for redemption. If they come back immediately, or very quickly, after being issued, the bankers know that they have over-issued, and that they must therefore pay in coin--to their inconvenience and perhaps loss--notes that would otherwise have remained in circulation long enough to earn so much interest as would have paid for issuing them; and would then have come back to them in payment of notes discounted, instead of coming back on a demand for redemption in coin.

Now, the best of all possible banking capital is real estate. It is the best, because it is visible, immovable, and indestructible. It cannot, like coin, be removed, concealed, or carried out of the country. And its aggregate value, in all civilized countries, is probably a hundred times greater than the amount of coin in circulation. It is therefore capable of furnis.h.i.+ng a hundred times as much money as we can have in coin.

The owners of this real estate have the greatest inducements to use it as banking capital, because all the banking profit, over and above expenses, is a clear profit; inasmuch as the use of the real estate as banking capital does not interfere at all with its use for other purposes.

Farmers have a double, and much more than a double, inducement to use their lands as banking capital; because they not only get a direct profit from the loan of their notes, but, by loaning them, they furnish the necessary capital for the greatest variety of manufacturing purposes. They thus induce a much larger portion of the people, than otherwise would, to leave agriculture, and engage in mechanical employments; and thus become purchasers, instead of producers, of agricultural commodities. They thus get much higher prices for their agricultural products, and also a much greater variety and amount of manufactured commodities in exchange.

The amount of money, capable of being furnished by this system, is so great that every man, woman, and child, who is worthy of credit, could get it, and do business for himself, or herself--either singly, or in partners.h.i.+ps--and be under no necessity to act as a servant, or sell his or her labor to others. All the great establishments, of every kind, now in the hands of a few proprietors, but employing a great number of wage laborers, would be broken up; for few, or no persons, who could hire capital, and do business for themselves, would consent to labor for wages for another.

The credit furnished by this system would always be stable; for the system is probably capable of furnis.h.i.+ng, _at all times_, all the credit, and all the money, that can be needed. It would also introduce a substantially universal system of cash payments. Everybody, who could get credit at all, would be able to get it at a bank, _in money_. With the money, he would buy everything he needed for cash. He would also sell everything for cash; for when everybody buys for cash, everybody sells for cash; since buying for cash, and selling for cash, are necessarily one and the same thing.

We should, therefore, never have another crisis, panic, revulsion of credit, stagnation of industry, or fall of prices; for these are all caused by the lack of money, and the consequent necessity of buying and selling on credit; whereby the amount of indebtedness becomes so great, so enormous, in fact, in proportion to the amount of money extant, with which to meet it, that the whole system of credit breaks down; to the ruin of everybody, except the few holders of the monopoly of money, who reap a harvest in the fall of prices, and the consequent bankruptcy of everybody who is dependent on credit for his means of doing business.

It would be inadmissible for me, in this letter, to occupy the s.p.a.ce that would be necessary, to expose all the false, absurd, and ridiculous pretences, by which the advocates of the monopoly of money have attempted to justify it. The only real argument they ever employed has been that, by means of the monopoly, the few holders of it were enabled to rob everybody else in the prices of their labor and property.

And our governments, State and national, have hitherto acted together in maintaining this monopoly, in flagrant violation of men's natural right to make their own contracts, and in flagrant violation of the self-evident truth, that, to make all traffic just and equal, it is indispensable that the money paid should be, in all cases, a _bona fide_ equivalent of the labor or property that is bought with it.

The holders of this monopoly now rule and rob this nation; and the government, in all its branches, is simply their tool. And being their tool for this gigantic robbery, it is equally their tool for all the lesser robberies, to which it is supposed that the people at large can be made to submit.

SECTION XV.

But although the monopoly of money is one of the most glaring violations of men's natural right to make their own contracts, and one of the most effective--perhaps _the_ most effective--for enabling a few men to rob everybody else, and for keeping the great body of the people in poverty and servitude, it is not the only one that our government practises, nor the only one that has the same robbery in view.

The so-called taxes or duties, which the government levies upon imports, are a practical violation both of men's natural right of property, and of their natural right to make their own contracts.

A man has the same _natural_ right to traffic with another, who lives on the opposite side of the globe, as he has to traffic with his next-door neighbor. And any obstruction, price, or penalty, interposed by the government, to the exercise of that right, is a practical violation of the right itself.

The ten, twenty, or fifty per cent. of a man's property, which is taken from him, for the reason that he purchased it in a foreign country, must be considered either as the price he is required to pay for the _privilege_ of buying property in that country, or else as a penalty for having exercised his _natural right_ of buying it in that country.

Whether it be considered as a price paid for a privilege, or a penalty for having exercised a natural right, it is a violation both of his natural right of property, and of his natural right to make a contract in that country.

In short, it is nothing but downright robbery.

And when a man seeks to avoid this robbery, by evading the government robbers who are lying in wait for him,--that is, the so-called revenue officers,--whom he has as perfect a right to evade, as he has to evade any other robbers, who may be lying in wait for him,--the seizure of his whole property,--instead of the ten, twenty, or fifty per cent. that would otherwise have been taken from him,--is not merely adding so much to the robbery itself, but is adding insult to the robbery. It is punis.h.i.+ng a man as a criminal, for simply trying to save his property from robbers.

But it will be said that these taxes or duties are laid to raise revenue for the support of the government.

Be it so, for the sake of the argument. All taxes, levied upon a man's property for the support of government, without his consent, are mere robbery; a violation of his natural right of property. And when a government takes ten, twenty, or fifty per cent. of a man's property, for the reason that he bought it in a foreign country, such taking is as much a violation of his natural right of property, or of his natural right to purchase property, as is the taking of property which he has himself produced, or which he has bought in his own village.

A man's natural right of property, in a commodity he has bought in a foreign country, is intrinsically as sacred and inviolable as it is in a commodity produced at home. The foreign commodity is bought with the commodity produced at home; and therefore stands on the same footing as the commodity produced at home. And it is a plain violation of one's right, for a government to make any distinction between them.

Government a.s.sumes to exist for the impartial protection of all rights of property. If it really exists for that purpose, it is plainly bound to make each kind of property pay its proper proportion, and only its proper proportion, of the cost of protecting all kinds. To levy upon a few kinds the cost of protecting all, is a naked robbery of the holders of those few kinds, for the benefit of the holders of all other kinds.

But the pretence that heavy taxes are levied upon imports, solely, or mainly, for the support of government, while light taxes, or no taxes at all, are levied upon property at home, is an utterly false pretence.

They are levied upon the imported commodity, mainly, if not solely, for the purpose of enabling the producers of competing home commodities to extort from consumers a higher price than the home commodities would bring in free and open market. And this additional price is sheer robbery, and is known to be so. And the amount of this robbery--which goes into the pockets of the home producers--is five, ten, twenty, or fifty times greater than the amount that goes into the treasury, for the support of the government, according as the amount of the home commodities is five, ten, twenty, or fifty times greater than the amount of the imported competing commodities.

Thus the amounts that go to the support of the government, and also the amounts that go into the pockets of the home producers, in the higher prices they get for their goods, are all sheer robberies; and nothing else.

But it will be said that the heavy taxes are levied upon the foreign commodity, not to put great wealth into a few pockets, but "_to protect the home laborer against the compet.i.tion of the pauper labor of other countries_."

This is the great argument that is relied on to justify the robbery.

This argument must have originated with the employers of home labor, and not with the home laborers themselves.

The home laborers themselves could never have originated it, because they must have seen that, so far as they were concerned, the object of the "protection," so-called, was, _at best_, only to benefit them, by robbing others who were as poor as themselves, and who had as good a right as themselves to live by their labor. That is, they must have seen that the object of the "protection" was to rob the foreign laborers, in whole, or in part, of the pittances on which they were already necessitated to live; and, secondly, to rob consumers at home,--in the increased prices of the protected commodities,--when many or most of these home consumers were also laborers as poor as themselves.

Even if any cla.s.s of laborers would have been so selfish and dishonest as to wish to thus benefit themselves by injuring others, as poor as themselves, they could have had no hope of carrying through such a scheme, if they alone were to profit by it; because they could have had no such influence with governments, as would be necessary to enable them to carry it through, in opposition to the rights and interests of consumers, both rich and poor, and much more numerous than themselves.

For these reasons it is plain that the argument originated with the employers of home labor, and not with the home laborers themselves.

And why do the employers of home labor advocate this robbery? Certainly not because they have such an intense compa.s.sion for their own laborers, that they are willing to rob everybody else, rich and poor, for their benefit. n.o.body will suspect them of being influenced by any such compa.s.sion as that. But they advocate it solely because they put into their own pockets a very large portion certainly--probably three-fourths, I should judge--of the increased prices their commodities are thus made to bring in the market. The home laborers themselves probably get not more than one-fourth of these increased prices.

Thus the argument for "protection" is really an argument for robbing foreign laborers--as poor as our own--of their equal and rightful chances in our markets; and also for robbing all the home consumers of the protected article--the poor as well as the rich--in the prices they are made to pay for it. And all this is done at the instigation, and princ.i.p.ally for the benefit, of the employers of home labor, and not for the benefit of home laborers themselves.

Having now seen that this argument--of "protecting our home laborers against the compet.i.tion of the pauper labor of other countries"--is, of itself, an utterly dishonest argument; that it is dishonest towards foreign laborers and home consumers; that it must have originated with the employers of home labor, and not with the home laborers themselves; and that the employers of home labor, and not the home laborers themselves, are to receive the princ.i.p.al profits of the robbery, let us now see how utterly false is the argument itself.

1. The pauper laborers (if there are any such) of other countries have just as good a right to live by their labor, and have an equal chance in our own markets, and in all the markets of the world, as have the pauper laborers, or any other laborers, of our own country.

Every human being has the same natural right to buy and sell, of and to, any and all other people in the world, as he has to buy and sell, of and to, the people of his own country. And none but tyrants and robbers deny that right. And they deny it for their own benefit solely, and not for the benefit of their laborers.

And if a man, in our own country--either from motives of profit to himself, or from motives of pity towards the pauper laborers of other countries--_chooses_ to buy the products of the foreign pauper labor, rather than the products of the laborers of his own country, he has a perfect legal right to do so. And for any government to forbid him to do so, or to obstruct his doing so, or to punish him for doing so, is a violation of his natural right of purchasing property of whom he pleases, and from such motives as he pleases.

2. To forbid our own people to buy in the best markets, is equivalent to forbidding them to sell the products of their own labor in the best markets; for they can buy the products of foreign labor, only by giving the products of their own labor in exchange. Therefore to deny our right to buy in foreign markets, is to forbid us to sell in foreign markets.

And this is a plain violation of men's natural rights.

If, when a producer of cotton, tobacco, grain, beef, pork, b.u.t.ter, cheese, or any other commodity, in our own country, has carried it abroad, and exchanged it for iron or woolen goods, and has brought these latter home, the government seizes one-half of them, because they were manufactured abroad, the robbery committed upon the owner is the same as if the government had seized one-half of his cotton, tobacco, or other commodity, before he exported it; because the iron or woolen goods, which he purchased abroad with the products of his own home labor, are as much his own property, as was the commodity with which he purchased them.

Therefore the tax laid upon foreign commodities, that have been bought with the products of our home labor, is as much a robbery of the home laborer, as the same tax would have been, if laid directly upon the products of our home labor. It is, at best, only a robbery of one home laborer--the producer of cotton, tobacco, grain, beef, pork, b.u.t.ter, or cheese--for the benefit of another home laborer--the producer of iron or woolen goods.

3. But this whole argument is a false one, for the further reason that our home laborers do not have to compete with "_the pauper labor_" of any country on earth; since the _actual paupers_ of no country on earth are engaged in producing commodities for export to any other country.

They produce few, or no, other commodities than those they themselves consume; and ordinarily not even those.

There are a great many millions of _actual paupers_ in the world. In some of the large provinces of British India, for example, it is said that nearly half the population are paupers. But I think that the commodities they are producing for export to other countries than their own, have never been heard of.

The term, "pauper labor," is therefore a false one. And when these robbers--the employers of home labor--talk of protecting their laborers against the compet.i.tion of "_the pauper labor_" of other countries, they do not mean that they are protecting them against the compet.i.tion of _actual paupers_; but only against the compet.i.tion of that immense body of laborers, in all parts of the world, _who are kept constantly on the verge of pauperism, or starvation_; who have little, or no, means of subsistence, except such as their employers see fit to give them,--which means are usually barely enough to keep them in a condition to labor.

These are the only "pauper laborers," from whose compet.i.tion our own laborers are sought to be protected. They are quite as badly off as our own laborers; and are in equal need of "protection."