Prospective Financial Legislation

Prominent republican and democratic senators and representatives and well-informed students of financial subjects agree that the prospects of important and beneficial legislation at the next session of congress, viewed from the present outlook, is extremely doubtful. It is freely predicted that the republican senators cannot be made as unanimous for the Aldrich bill again as they were at the close of the last session of congress, when the bill was defeated merely because there was not sufficient time to allow a few of the opposition senators to give their views. Not only is there less unanimity of republican sentiment for what was known as the Aldrich ideas, but the democrats promise to oppose the ideas, although declaring that they will welcome financial legislation that will be of real benefit to the country.

The democrats will not oppose any legislation of a financial nature for which there is united demand by the business interests of the country, but they realize that there is a wide difference of opinion as to the Aldrich bill and they will attack that measure or its principles embodied in any other measure.

A principal feature of the Aldrich bill was the provision that state, municipal and railroad bonds of approved classes might be accepted by the Secretary of the Treasury as security for the deposit of public moneys. The democrats are attacking this feature on several grounds. Their first objection to it is that it encourages the continuation of a surplus in the treasury, when the tariff laws ought to be amended so as to prevent such a surplus; second, that if the people were relieved of tariff burdens to the extent of $30,000,000 or $40,000,000 a year that amount would not have to be placed in the hands of national banks for their benefit; third, that in making such deposits the banks are being allowed to use the government money without interest.

The leading feature of the democratic position, however, is that the government is every day accumulating money that it cannot use, and that to prevent a financial crash by reason of the accumulation of this sum outside of trade channels, the treasury department is compelled to do something with it; that one Of the ways of putting the money back into circulation is to deposit it in national banks. Another contention is that the placing of this money in banks encourages over-speculation and the putting out of endless stocks of all kinds. It will be claimed by the democrats that if the banks are not burdened with money they will not make loans on anything except legitimate business, but that if they have a plethora of funds, including those of the government, they will lend on stocks that are not gilt-dged, and thereby encourage over-speculation and dangers that might menace the business of the country.

To sum it up briefly, the democrats will say that to get rid of this state of affairs, instead of providing for easier methods of putting out government money, the reformation of the tariff and the reduction of the government income would be the best and safest plan, the position being that there is plenty of money in the country.

The republicans are all tangled up on this money business. It gives the democracy the best possible opportunity of giving the country an object lesson on the blessings of tariff reduction as a means of keeping all this surplus in the pockets of the people, instead of fighting over plans for getting it back to the people after taking it away from them for the behoof of the trusts and monopolies of the country.

-------------------------------

The Windsor common council is wrestling with a weighty problem, in trying to regulate the weight of a loaf of bread. This august body had fixed the weight of the standard loaf at two pounds, but as the bakers cut the weight to one and a half pounds, the council got together and reduced the weight of the official loaf by that much. This looks as though the bakers and not the council are fixing the loaf.