Bank Suspension Of Gold Payments

Considerador) of the conditions which have necessitated the ioo millions of borrowing by the government during the past year, suggests a question as to what has happened ío :he usual source of the treasury goud supply. Ordinarily about ninety per cent of the receipts from customs are paid in gold and therefore no difficulty is experienced in naiotaining the government reserve. Froro the first of March, 1892, to the close of October, 1894, the total receipts from customs were about Í395, 000,000, and under ordinary conditions $360,000,000 of this woald have been paid in gold. During the time mentioned, however, there were reallybut about $20,000■000 of gold receipts. The differnee represents the loss to the govrnment in its ordinary gold income. The amount of gold exported during 1893 and 1894 was about $200,000, ■000 and most of this was supplied by the treasury instead of by the banks as is ordinarily done. Here then, is the cause of the trouble with the treasury gold reserve. The banks, early in the panic, practically suspended gold payments and the suspension stiti continúes. Not only did the banks reduce their payments of gold to importers for the liquidation of customs, duties to the minimum, but tey gave exporters government notes on which gold was obtained as needed at the sub-treasury. Thus is the government deprived of its gold income and at the same time is called upon to supply a large amount of gold for export. To neet these conditions the government is compelled to borrow of the very banks that have withheld gold payments and to suffer great loss in ánterest. Thus the expensive and obisinesslike see-saw of borrowing trom the banks to make good the treasury reserve and the withdrawal of the treasujy reserve again by the banksthat thcy may lend it to the government continúes, and is bound to continue until the banks resume gotd payments or the government suspends gold payments. Had the banks returned to gold ■payments months ago, as they were abtindantly able to do, as is evidenced by the fact of their loans of ioo millions to the government, the igovernment might have been spared the necessity of borrowing and the loss in interest, for the ten years ■which the bonds are to run, of $50,00,000. It is the duty of congress to devise some r'emedy for this intolerable monetary condition and apply the same at the earliest possible moment. The treasury should not longer be lef t to the tend t niers of the banks of the country. "The action of President Angel! in laking his place on the jury benches last week and neither offering excuses or asking to be relieved from the service is an example to be coniraended to the consideration of all jood citizens. If the better class of ■out citizenship would uniformly respond in like spirit to the calis of the public service, not only the jury system would be relieved of much -odium now cast upon it, but the efficiency of the public service generally would be grealty enhanced. Our citizens are too prone to sit .back and satisfy their consciences 'hy decrying the evils which exist in Oranches of the public service rrathtr than to come to the front and koioestly and faithfully discharge Sheir fa'il obligations as citizens. Until all good citizens are willing to i3o íhis they should be chary of their v,Lriticisms of existing evils. Better government and administrador! in every line is possiblc provided the people want it. All this in our country is but tiie average oí public sentiment and performance of the citi.en's riuties. Xineteen persons, by actual count, all honorable men, ex-congressmen, ex-officeholders, disappointed office seekers and others not sufficiently numerous to make mention necessary met at the Downey House, Lansing, last Friday and after much labor brought forth a resolution. Judging from all appearances at the moment of resoluting, they wanted free silver. They also tried to appoint a committee of twenty-one, but did not have men enough to man it. They further authorized a committee of one from each county and having found three men in their midst who would serve on such a committee clothed theru with power to appoint all the others. A considerable volume of talk was tikewise fired into space. The great silver conference then adjourned. No doubt this gathering which had been so widely heralded was numerically and every other way representative of the Michigan movement for a new free silver party. The Evening News, the most radical free silver organ in the state, ñames it a "mistake." The word is feeble but will do. They want cheap money and plenty of it. - Adrián Press. The above, according to our esteemed contemporary, is what the farmer wants. If the Press has properly diagnosed the farmers' case, which the Argus is inclined to seriously doubt, the money of the late Southern Confederacy would just fill the bill of their needs, and Gen. Gordon in his lecture on "The Last Days of the Confederacy," relates a -story which is to the point. An officer carne riding into camp and was saluted by one of his men who then began to badger the general about his horse and wound up by oftering the ofticer three thousand dollars for the animal. The general, putting on the air of injury, turned on the soldier and said: "Do you propose to insult me sir, by making me such an offer? Why sir, I just paid two thousand dollars to have the animal curried." The National Live Stock Exchange in delégate meeting at St. Louis, make an appeal to congress to remove the duty on raw sugar and modify that on refined, with the view of raising the European embargo on American cattle, beef and hogs. They declare that unless this is done the farming interests of the country will be greatly crippled and the live stock interests badly injured. They are confident that if these obnoxious duties are removed, we will hear no more about Texas fever among the cattle sent abroad. According to the Chicago Herald, the Hon. TomReed is at present playing in the house of representatives the role of Mrs.. Fuzziwig, "one vast substantial smile."