The Financial Outlook

When the dust of Tuesday's elections has suttled down all over the country as it eoon will, and Republicana anc DemocriUs liuve got tired of shouting thfinselves hoarse in the way of mutua ! misreprogentation, it will begin to bo seen that thero are three elementary inquirios renpectiug the money circula tion of the country whioh must be fairly, patiently and intelligently discus ei beforo our legislation, State and national, can be set on n basis which shall bic fair to bo oven reasonably permanen and satistaotory. The coiniug, creatinf or inaking of uiouey is of course a matter of ponitive law, and to tbat exteu uil mouey is "fiat inoiiey." In a representativo goverument liko ours the peoili' multe their monay bucause the peoplo tnako thoir laws. We shall uever get out of the predicament in which uusound fiuanoial theories put iuto practico during the civil war have landv.d us until wo resolutoly turn back, so tur us money is conceruud, to a c&ndic and broad consideration of what the law was before the civil war. In considering tuis we must betvr in mind that evyry votor of today who is thirty years of ago was only twelvo years of ago when our existing battle-boin financia systein began. Men wbo were tweutyone years old in 1HG0 are thirty-nine now, and now aa grown men, therefore havo never practically known iu their own country any money whatever but the " Hat paper" money croated by the Xational Governmont. Thig inoney hud no basis but utility ia exohanging commodities and servicns and in transferring (not paying) private debts. I1 did not even discharge sueh public dues us foreign imposta and interest on the national dobt. The whole of the voting generation which is now in middle life must by study, which we may cali cooperative, and by mutual discussion, re-examine our whole tinancial edifíce " from turret to foundation -stone." In this ro-examinatiou no roal and beneficiul progress can possibly be made by mere donunciation, or by such confonnding of epithets with argumenta and oi abusive terms with logical statements as wo have rotently aeen and board ïhere are three questions whioh He al the threshold of this great study. 1. What shall be the quality of our money 'f Is it to be cxclusively metallic, or partly metallic and partly of paper, or exclusively of paper 't If of paper, in whole or in part, shall that paper represent gold absolutely or silver absolutely, dollar for dollar, and that in coiu always producible on deuiand ? 2. What authority shall coin or creato and issue this money 'i If it is to be metallic money the Constitution has answered tho iuquiry. But how if it is to be of paper, in whole or in part ? Is the Federal Government still to be a bank issuing paper, either directly, as with Ihe greenbacks, or indirectly, as with the uational bank notos 'í And ii not, then shall we go back to the State banks of the ante-btllum period, and repeal the laws now on the books which tax such State institutions out of al] hope of resurrectiou ? . Whether the money be metallic or of paper or a mixed money ; whether it be a specie currency, or a credit currency basod on coin, or a crtdit currency based on nothing visible and producible at all, what shall be its volume or what the nuuiber of its units '! Shall the quantity be of five or of seven or of fourtoon hundred millions? All these inquines are matter for Berious and general consideration and for intelligent legislative discussion. And the problem will not be satisfactorily solved either by a ritualistio kneeling down beforp Mr. Shormau's two-faced resumption law, or by more parrot-like dunuuciations either of gold-money or of silvor money or of Hat paper mouey.