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THE REFLECTOR. MILLEDGEVILLE, G. TUESDAY, JUNE 30, 1818. N'h 34. HANKING. M NILES WEEKLY 11EGISTEII. PAPER SYSTEM—NO. V. icrceive with much satisfaction, ave in your last Register, but one, 1 an intention of publishing a ta- hew that the pauperism ol' Eng- dvanccd step by step with the iii- hcr paper system, and that the for- inevitable consequence of the lat- a fellow laborer, in a good cause, rtliy, independent and intelligent all devote this letter principally to pement of the same subject. In vc shall not interfere, but on the strengthen our opposition, and ren- iope more efficient. Our coiiVsc fferent though tending to the same ; and if I should happen to repeat have said, the repetition of truth harm—nor can two well meaning no personal intercourse with , thinking alike on the same snb- en the force of their respective o- Your tables of facts, will be unan- and my own reasonings may pos- then the public in the conviction uses you assign for the effect, thus exist in England, are derived sole- c influence of the great paper sys- 1 the arguments hitherto used in f that system in the United .States, n drawn from the example of Eng d it is high time that its dangerous hould be opposed by facts drawn same source. f the nearest things to a moral im- ty in this world, is to convince tnan- t there may be too much of a good The next step in the grade of inip.is- s is o persuade them that what they cn ail along considering a very great , is, on the contrary a very great It is therefore [ fear, almost a liope- <> to undertake to apprize my worthy itizeus, that the great exuberance money, not only contributes to e nation actually poor, by banishing nd substituting an imaginary wealth icc ; hut that it also inevitably im- tes every class of people but one, by [hem severely, for the benelit of that le. The task however hopeless, is aps quite impossible, especially as at ament, the perceptions of many of aders may have been quickened by al experience of the truth, finite,n is sometimes of service in ar- , and 1 will begin mine with one—of Banks are ingenious devices of men, money, sanctioned by legislative without discretion, to impoverish a y banishing its specie capital, and tlr people by making them tributary Ivileged order. is definition, I believe is not put in- plain English by any of the learned on the paper system, I will endeavor lish it by a plain appeal to honest sense, that usefulquality, which would '■ invaluable, did it not so often con- 'come the dupe of interested rogues, nary theorists. der to ascertain the true operation of tem, it is always necessary to look a yond the sera of its commencement, how matters stood at that period. It veto simplify the. matter, if I first :ase, and then apply it to this coun- ppose then, a nation, previous to an Stion of the paper system, was in n of twenty millions of actual spe ll was amply sufficient for all the to which money is usually applied rt, that it answered all the ends of a vg medium. We are to pay particu tion to the fact, that this money is in the country—that it is bona file erty of the nation, whiih pays no in if whatever. At this period the stem commences its operations, and suppose a paper currency of forty created by hanking companies pos- an exclusive privilege of issuing this bstitutc for the national .specie. Tw o cnees will inevitably result from this tion. The specie capital w ill disap- s uses will be lost to the nation, as seen to our cost ;•—for money is an mbitious tkeinon—«it will not lie idle, ndemned to obscurity and unprofita- in one country, will assuredly find reach another, where it can fulfil tlaw of gold, “ increase and multi bus the nation will lose its twenty f real capital on which it paid no and will get in its stead forty mil- aper, on which it pays an interest twelve per cent—to privileged cof- , as I shall prove in a subsequent his letter. the twenty millions of specie dol ing been folly adequate to all the. ants of the nation, the inevitahl ncc of doubling this capital, and he wlmlc in circulation, must bp a great diminution in the value of money— certainly not less than twenty-five or thirty per cent. The nation will therefore be tax ed ten or twelve per cent, on forty millions of dollars, for which it gains only an acces sion of twenty millions of paper money, dc- pi eriated more than one fourth in value.— Here then is a dead tax on the different class es of the community, excepting the bank corporation's, to whom the tax is paid, of re ally five millions, simply for the great ad vantage of the difference between a circulat ing medium of twenty millions, which was actuallyjvhat it professed to he, and forty millions of dollars, one half of which mere ly replaces the twenty millions it has expel led from the country, and the whole of which passes at a depreciation of at least one fourth its nominal value ! Is it a matter of wonder that every class of people but the privileged banking order, its pimps, jackails, satellites and dependants, should wither under a tax like this, thus silently and imperceptibly withdrawing from the. proprietor of real pro perty, and the honest laborer, a portion of their gains amounting to nearly five millions of dollars, and giving them nothing or next to nothing in return ? But it seems we must shut our eyes and understandings, and be lieve against the evidence of facts so plain and undeniable, that the nation is bc'ncfittcd, by an annual tax of ten per cent, on the pro fits of its laaor, paid to a privileged order, while ils actual means of extending those gains arc only increased by a few millions of depreciated currency. I hope, that the definition of banks which may have appear ed a little startling at first, is now made clear to the comprehension of those to whom alone I address myself—the people of plain,straight forward common sense. It would appear absolutely impossible to account for the blindness of the* people of England to these obvious consequences of the paper system, did we not revert to the ingenious system of reasoning, which always at companies the system of paper. All these disadvantages, arc more than balanced it seems, by the high price of lauds, labor, eve ry thing indeed, by which the land holder and the laborer are enabled to pay this great tax to the privileged banking order, and pocket a surplus besides. And this won der is brought about by commerce, say these ingenious rcasooers. Commerce, sic, cun do great things, but it cannot make foreign nations pay us more for productions of our lands and labor, than they pay to other peo ple. This is a species of favoritism not usu ally indulged by nations. And here we will take occasion to apply the foregoing reason ings to our own country, to whose case they are most strictly applicable. ^ cry few. if any, of the productions of la bor in the United States except the labor ap plied to the land, arc exported to other countries. Consequently this argument does not even speciously apply to any other class of people hut farmers. To them I shall prove I trust, that, it applies witli nearly as little justice. If the price of labor is raised so as to enable the laborer to pay his portion of the great tax on the paper money issued in the United States, without actual loss, on whom docs this additional price fall ? On those who employ him, and who are they ( the people ol the United States—-consequent ly the nation is not enriched, because it is only one class paying what another receives. The nation can therefore only he benefitted by this high price of its products and labor, by its exports, and I have I think proved, in a foregoing letter, that this cannot happen, because we export none of our own produc tions, except those of the soil, which we can only sell in foreign countries at the price which is given lor the same productions of other nations, our rivals in the market. If the merchant gives more to the farmer or planter for his produce, than he can got for it in a foreign market, the nation gains no thing by it, since the gain of the farmer is the loss of the merchant. The great plenty of paper money gives, consequently, no na tional equivalent, for the great tax it levies, as I have before proved, on the people—be cause the riralship of other nations that can afford to sell cheaper, will always keep down our foreign market. Tiic whole argument >f the defenders of tire paper system falls to the ground, the moment the tax which it lc vies on labor, cannot be reimbursed to the laborer, by his employer in an increaso of wages; to the employed, by an increase in the value of the product of this labor ; and to the exporter, by his ability to lay the whole of this addition on the foreign purchaser. In the United States there are now in cir culation, probably, notless than two hundred millions of paper money. There iB no means of arriving at certainty in this case, except by a general call of the legislatures, which l think ought to be made, fora statement of the amount. When however, we take into consideration, the number of our banks, and the tact that they most necessarily issue more than twice the amount of their pretend ed capitals, to divide eight, ten, twelve, nay fifteen per cent, of profits, independently of expenses and bad debts, I think two hundred millions of dollars a moderate calculation. I am almost afraid to proceed, sir—the consequences of the truths before stated, when applied to this country, actually have induced a severe scrutiny of the principles I have just laid down, which has ended in a conviction still more firm. On this two 'iun- dred millions of dollars the people of the U. States are paying an interest of at least ten percent, being more than the amount of all the taxes levied directly and indirectly by the government ! And this for what ? For the support of a privileged order—a paper aris tocracy—a small minority of the nation— which cannot become otherwise than a mino rity—because the majority can never be ben efitted by a monopoly. T'iie great mass of the people are therefore forever excluded from sharing any of the real advantages of the paper system. Let me go on and divide this blessing—this tr.x of twenty millions, among the people, and sec where the greatest portion—the heaviest weight will fall. When the means of obtaining the necessa ries or luxuries of life arc circumscribed to. the laborers, and the men of real capital, they have but' two alternatives- Either they must make the labor or the real capital more productive, or they must give up—the one, a portion of the absolute necessaries, the other, of the luxuries of life. Now, sir, let us, after having reasoned from the poor up to the rich, reverse the method and rea son back again. The rich man can associ-' ate himself with hanks, and incorporate himself with the paper aristocracy, by in vesting his real capital in banks, and thus buying a title—that of bank director for in stance, instead of a victim lie becomes an accomplice, and shares, instead of paying a portion of this great tax of twenty millions. If he does not this he must retrench his su perfluities to escape falling into abject want. The members of the laboring classes, on the contrary, until ,'icy acquire, either great wealth, or great political influence in the ci ties, are never associated in this dignified order of privileged paper barons, simply because they have nothing to contribute hut their due portion of the twenty millions of tax, which they are condemned to pay. In deed, the powerful classes of a community can generally manage to shift their burthens ,on the laboring people—tlicy gradually de scend step by step until they Vail upon the poor, where they stop. They cannot shifi their burthens—there is iiere no further pro gress—no reaction. Hero they remain, and here they fester, and wither, and consume. In no country where there are privileged orders, is there not to he found a correspon ding order of beggars ? These are the op posite extremes of the system. The beggar makes the noble, and the noble repays him for the independence of which he has robbod him, by subscribing to charitable institu tions and poor rates. He takes from the poor laborer the honest gains of his labor, and repays the pauper by aims. And it can not he otherwise in such a system ; for al though by the bountiful distributions of Pro vidence there is enough on the earth for the people who inhabit it, if that is left to its na tural distribution ; yet unerring experience lias demonstrated in a thousand instances, that there is no more than enough. There cannot he a monopoly by one portion of a community, without a corresponding want in the other—there cannot be exclusive pri vileges granted to one class without infring- the rights of another—there never was and there never will he princes without paupers. Industry always pays the piper for idle ness—and a race of idle princes and nobility, that is to say, a privileged order, is much more expensive than an order of common paupers. The people are taxed much more severely to supply the extravagancies of the one than the w ants of the other. The paper aristocracy in this country stands precisely in this situation ; it is taxing the people twen ty millions of dollars to support its idleness and extravagance. The laborer gets nothing of the banks, and is paying a great portion of this tax. The two hundred millions of money,on which he is taxed, is no advantage to him—it does not enable him to do more work in a day than he did in the time of gold and silver currency—nor docs he receive for that labor, as much real value as when he was paid in silver and gold. Yet is he taxed some thirty or forty dollars yearly to keep up the dignity of the paper aristocracy. To be sure, sir, forty dollars is no great matter—-a broker would earn a thousand times that sum in a year, without benefitting the country a farthing.—A member of the paper aristocracy, would give that sum for a fresh salmon, to treat his brother manifi- cios ; and a speculator would risk ten thou sand times the amount—of other people’s money—in the desperate chance of making ten thousand times as much more. And yet notwithstanding this astonishing different it does so happen that this insignificant class of people who think so much of forty dollars, do actually contribute more to the real rich es and physical strength and happiness of a country, than all the brokers, monopolizers, and speculators, that ever did, or do, or shall exist, in the world. In time of peace they are the sources of all the comforts of the rich —every time they lift their arms, some re- nui iite to the comfort of men is supplied,— and in time of public danger they are the de fenders of our property—the vindicators of my rights. I ha/e cast about to find, in what rank of useful animals to class tho9ft by whom their happiness is thus sacrificed. They add neither to the wealth, or the strength of a nation—they neither administer to our wants by doing any thing useful, nor do they afford the means to others to be useful—they are the drones of society who consume the honey with out either bringing any to the hive or guarding what is there.—In short, I ain at a loss to reconcile their existence to our ideas of a just Providence, except in the way we ac count for the existence of all the phenomena of iltnral evil, by supposing them instruments for the punishment of mail’s transgressions — and thus classing them with plague, pesti lence, famine and other sweeping avengers. But enough of the picture. I do not wish to disarm the indignation of the reader, by tur ning its object into a tiling to excite pity. Without therefore entering upon an enqui ry into the comparative rank either of theso classes occupy in the scale of a nat: >n, I will content myself with repeating, that’the laboring class amply deservos the protection of the government, as well as the paper aris tocracy, and that it is now stinted in ils en joyments, and in a fair way of being beggar ed by the tax it pays to the support of the paper system. While the active capital of the country, is thus diverted from those ob jects that give employment to the industri ous, to purposes of usury, monopoly, and speculation, the laborer is left without a ne cessary supplv of work. Ilcncc arises a contest for employment, rather than for la- lorcrs, and the consequence is that the la borer, instead of being able to insist on an augmentation of his wages, corresponding with the depreciation of money, and the con sequent high price of the necessaries oflifc, is compelled by his wants, to work at any wages the rich may choose to give. In eve ry country, the means of the laboring class, are so nearly on a par with their absolute wants, ttiat they cgunot refuse to work a length of time sufficient to gain an augincrp. tation of wages, without starving. They must work at incompetent wages—they pos sess no superfluities to live upon in the mean time, and whatever is taken from them—.is so much taken from their daily bread. Hen re it is that they first begin to feel the opera tion of any system injurious to the whole some prosperity of a nation. It is by them national distress isfirstfelt—on them it bears hardest—for they have least to lose. Follow ing this upwards—we shall find the class of people next them, possessing the smallest portion of superfluity, becoming the victims —an i so on until we come to the great privi leged order, which has swallowed all, and is revelling in the spoils of all below. This is a picture of what England now is—and what we are every day becoming. The la borers, and small farmers, and capitalists, are ruined—while those who have incorpo rated themselves with the paper system, are, revelling in inordinate wealth—the wealth of the present race of British paupers. Thesft were once the men who paid all the taxes of the paper system, are now depend- enton those who possess the fruits of their labor. These poor victims have nothing now to pay, and the burthen has fallen on the next ( lass above them—the farmers, who will soon like them become the victims /if the same paper system. Thus every order of man is approximating nearer to beggary; and like the companions of Ulysses, each is watting his turn to be devoured by this tre mendous Cyclops. In the mean time tlidy are becoming more easy victims, by' gradu ally waxing weaker and weaker every day, from their proportion of the great paper tax, becoming greater by the total extinction of one of the orders of men who assisted in its payment. Thus are we enabled clearly to perceive how the vital blood may he slowly drained from the right arm of a nation, and the wholesome vigor of the whole body de stroyed, to foster the growth of some filthy cxcrosccnce, that grows with the decay of nature, and at length produces exhaustion and death. There are two causes however, that will retard the catastrophe in this country, al though they cannot finally avert it. Fortu nately for our welfare, owing to the wide spread surface of our country, and to some little dissimilarity of habits and character, in the different sections, we seldom find a mania raging equally in aH parts, and at tho same time. The diseases of tho mind under which we labor, arc mostly caught from a- broad, and make their first appearance like tho Yellow Fever, about tire sea ports.—