A Financial Autocrat

What the Nation of this week says of our finances, in the course of a very able article deserves to be pondered : " ïhe financial policy which was adopted in 1861 has raised the Secretary of the Treasury from the position of a sort of paviug teller or hoad olerk, into that of a Minister of Finance of the European type, with enormous discretionary powers over the banks and currency of the country, and even the fortunes of its merchants and traders. He can build a bank up by its deposito, or save it from ruin by his indulgenoe ; he can, as he now asserts, change the value of allproperty by inflating or contracting the currency ; he can make the fortunes of his friends by timely information as to his intentions in regard to the sale of gold or purchase of bonds ; and he can ruin any man engaged in foreign trade by the use of the army spies and inforiners who now watch the importers at all the great seaports. No Minister of Finance has, indeed, exercised such powers in Europa since 1789. Sotnething like thera was to be found in Franca under the old regime but yet nothing equal to them."