und by the
banks, another large portion is locked up in the sub-treasury, and the
actual circulation of the Union but $460,000,000,--really less than that
of France or Great Britain, although our population exceeds that of
either of those countries. And Mr. Carey, in his instructive letter,
offers proof that our circulation, although in excess of the gold,
silver, and bills circulating before the war, is not disproportionate to
our commercial transactions. When the Secretary of the Treasury is
ready, no serious contraction will probably be required, and no ruin
will follow, if our merchants move with caution, and prepare for a
return to the only safe standard of values. Let the manufacturer
accumulate no stocks, but continue to make goods to order, to sell in
advance. Let him cover his sales by the purchase of the materials as the
wise and sagacious have done ever since the surrender of Lee, and we
shall be ready for the notice that, after an interval of three or four
months, the United States will meet their notes and contracts with
specie.

Commerce will gradually adapt itself to this notice, as it has done to
the decline of gold from 285 to 130 in less than a year. But it is urged
that we have a thousand millions of debt to fund within three years, and
therefore cannot resume. Did we not fund nearly a thousand millions at
par in 1865, and most of this after gold fell to 30 per cent premium?
Then the amount was drawn from hoards and commerce; but now our income
exceeds expenditures, and we are reducing the debt ten or twenty
millions a month; we require no funds for war or unproductive
investments, and when we pay one hundred millions, we return it to those
who will seek new loans for investment, and doubtless lend on more
favorable terms.

At Paris, Brussels, and Frankfort, the average rate of interest last
year was less than five per cent. Give Mr. McCulloch power to go there,
to issue bonds for one twentieth part of our debt payable there in the
currency of the country; and with such a fund at his disposal, he can at
once reduce interest and bring back specie, or rather retain it; for we
need not seek it abroad. When the Committee of Ways and Means intimate
that they will give him this power, gold and exchange fall; if a doubt
is expressed, both advance; and the simple question before the public
is, whether we shall cripple the Minister of Finance and give the power
to Wall Street;--whether our finances are to be