the shame under which it now lies. So far as one can understand it, the opinion of this country would be warmly in favour of such a pledge being given by our statesmen. Are our statesmen themselves of the same way of thinking? One hopes that they are; but in any case it may, I think, be said with some show of confidence that, whatever happens, the British people will never again allow a Prime Minister to use the might of this country for the purpose of defending the Ottoman Empire, and will never sanction any fresh engagement which makes them responsible for keeping a ring' for the Sultan and his fiends while they indulge in such a saturnalia as that of Sassun. Whether they care to believe it or not, the Russians are secure henceforth from such a policy on the part of England as that which twenty years ago they felt so keenly and which they still resent so bitterly.

The late Mr. Froude, in his Life of Lord Beaconsfield, used certain pertinent words which, coming from a man who was certainly not ‘a Little Englander' or a friend of latter-day Radicalism, ought to have some weight with those who may regard the opinions of living Radicals with suspicion. Speaking of the Jingo agitation of 1878 he says:

Of the tens of thousands who gathered in Hyde Park to shout for war, how many had considered what a war with Russia might involve? Bismarck could not understand Disraeli's attitude. 'Why cannot you be friends with Russia and settle your differences peacefully?' he said to him at the beginning of the dispute. 'Why not put an end once for all to this miserable Turkish business, which threatens Europe every year or two with war?' Why not, indeed? . . . In such a war we stand to lose all and gain nothing, while in itself it would be nothing less than a crime against mankind. We are told that a cordial co-operation with Russia is impossible. It will not be made more possible by a quarrel over Turkey. Yet to a peaceful arrangement we must come at last if the quarrel is not to be pursued till one or other of us is destroyed.

is

There is happily no war feeling on our side at this moment. It peace with Russia, not war, that we want. Will our statesmen be wise enough and strong enough to take advantage of this feeling on the part of the nation to put an end to the old jealousies and hatreds, and to establish that cordial understanding with Russia which alone can make impossible a struggle such as that which Froude justly described as 'a crime against mankind'?

WEMYSS REID.

THE CRY FOR FRAUDULENT MONEY

IN AMERICA

WHEN a man with good reputation suddenly goes wrong, it is natura to seek some explanation for his conduct. Sometimes his fall is attributed to heredity, or laid to the art of successful concealment. Again, it may be claimed that misfortune has merely developed traits long dormant, or that, in the latest cant, he is the victim of 'degeneration.' So when a great national political party in the United States, from being conservative, careful, even to cautiousness, of rights and interests, proud of its traditions and its history, and anxious for the respect of its adherents and the country, as well as for votes and power, makes itself deliberately the ally of the worst elements in the eclectic population of a great country; when it places over the doors of its Convention Hall the sign 'Danger: Beware,' shamelessly proclaiming that it is devoted to the policy of repudiation, that plunder and anarchy are among the most innocent of its purposes, and that it welcomes the adventurers it has always opposed, it certainly time to ask some questions. It is a phenomenon, and, as such, it must be interesting to attempt to trace, even in the most unsatisfactory way, some of the processes which accompany the appearance of signs and wonders. This becomes the more imperative when one has long been attached to such an organisation, has given to it such support as he could, and has found in it congenial associations, both as to doctrine and individuals.

When the Civil War closed in 1865, the Democratic party, torn asunder by division five years before, was able at once to resume its work more or less systematically in every State in the Union, and thus to show that it was a truly national organisation. Its partisans had fought, in perhaps equal numbers, on either side during a great contest, and so were better able than others to understand what civil war meant. During the struggle its leaders were in a hopeless minority in both Houses of Congress, and were only able in the most fitful way to gain control of a few State Legislatures. Among them were many men of character, ability, and patriotism who, firmly attached to the Union at all times, were peculiarly fitted to bind up

the wounds it had made. They did so with a devotion and a heroism truly great, and so became the brake upon the wheel of fanaticism at a time when it was difficult, almost to impossibility, to find such a thing as conservatism.

Scarcely was the conflict over, when great financial problems pressed for solution. From a simple country, without taxes, without even the annual expenditure now made in a fourth-class European State, with no necessity or desire to study or master questions of finance, there had sprung into being, almost without thought, a great nation, with new impulses and ambitions, and with a debt unexampled in human history when the brief period in which it was incurred is taken into account. Few men had thought of finance, fewer had had an opportunity to deal with it, and none of them was in the Democratic Opposition. Much uncertain, tentative work followed. Gold payment had been suspended, vast amounts of irredeemable paper were in circulation among a people never over-familiar with the value and appearance of gold, and for whom during all their history a currency in the form of paper has had a strange and unaccountable fascination.

The debt had been created largely on a paper basis, and when the first hints of liquidation came, the issue was raised that the bonds representing this indebtedness ought to be paid in 'greenbacks'— the name given to the legal tender currency created by the Act of February, 1862. Many of the leading men of the dominant party assumed this position, among them some who for many years have shown forth fruits meet for repentance by strenuous and successful efforts to assist and maintain the national honour. After full discussion, this issue was settled by a declaration that the bonds should be paid in coin-a decision from which the people of the United States have never wavered. But the Democrats were in opposition. Although they were gradually regaining power in some of the States of the North, their friends in the South were struggling with reconstruction schemes and with those financial questions of purely personal interest which marked the border line between starvation and plenty. Naturally, they had no time, and less inclination or power, to make any contributions to the elucidation of great fiscal difficulties.

Within a few years it became apparent that the prosperity which had been supposed to accompany inflation was not, after all, the highest and most enduring kind; so when the Government ceased to print new issues of currency and began to pay some of its bonded debt, times were said to have become hard, and there was a sigh in many quarters for the return of the days of a dollar worth only forty cents, instead of one which had gradually appreciated until it was worth more than twice this sum. This sentiment was particularly strong in what was then known as the West-the country beyond

the Alleghany Mountains. In Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois there was a fairly continuous demand for the payment of the bonds in greenbacks, for a cessation of the process of retiring this irredeemable currency, which had come to be spoken of as 'money,' and for its taxation.

In 1868 the first Presidential canvass after the close of the war was entered upon. The Republicans nominated General Grant as their candidate-although it is not known that he had ever voted a Republican ticket—and declared the following to be their creed on finance :

We denounce all forms of repudiation as a national crime, and the national honour requires the payment of the public debt in the utmost good faith to all creditors at home and abroad, not only according to the letter, but the spirit of the law under which it was contracted.

A few weeks later the Democrats held their convention, and put forth the following as their confession of faith:

Where the obligations of the Government do not expressly state upon their face, or the law under which they were issued does not provide, that they shall be paid in coin, they ought, in right and justice, to be paid in the lawful money of the United States.

A demand was made for the equal taxation of every species of property, including Government bonds and other public securities,' and was followed up by this glittering generality: One currency for the Government and the people, the labourer and the office-holder, the pensioner and the soldier, the producer and the bondholder.' This was vague, but it was understood to mean, and did mean, attachment to the greenback. The platform was made to fit an Ohio candidate; but the convention defeated him, and nominated Horatio Seymour, then recently Governor of New York, one of the noblest and highest-minded men developed in our politics, and he was compelled to go to defeat repudiating the platform upon which he stood.

As a result of this, the Democrats veered round rapidly toward sound finance, and in 1870 their convention in New York enumerated, among other Republican shortcomings, 'inability to devise an intelligent financial policy and the restoration of a sound currency.' In the same year the Supreme Court of the United States declared that the law which gave the greenbacks legal power was unconstitutional, Chief Justice Chase, who, as Secretary of the Treasury, had issued them, delivering the majority opinion. This was reversed by the full bench the next year, but its effect was that no national convention of either of the great parties endorsed such a currency until this year. Another result was that the labour organisations, then much more potent in the making of political opinions than now, began to condemn the national bank system-also devised

during the war period-and to demand the substitution of 'legal tender notes as the exclusive currency of the nation.' Within a few years this doctrine had no party authority behind it, other than that represented by a faction whose members called themselves Greenbackers.'

We are concerned just now with the attitude on questions of finance of the Democratic party only, except in so far as the position of other organisations may have a bearing upon this history. In 1872 an independent element inside the Republican party held a national convention in Cincinnati, and nominated Horace Greeley for President. The Democrats endorsed this ticket, both standing on the same platform. It would be difficult to find a financial sentiment more diverse from that just quoted out of the platform of 1868. They declared that 'the public credit must be sacredly maintained, and we denounce repudiation in every form and guise. A speedy return to specie payments is demanded alike by the highest considerations of commercial morality and honest government.' The candidate was defeated, but as a result of the movement-and especially because of its changed attitude on finance-thousands of men who had left the party in the days of the war came back to its ranks, while other thousands of active and intelligent young men in every part of the country were drawn into it. From that time it can date its revival. It began at once to gain victories in every part of the Union, and was able in 1874 to regain control of the House of Representatives and to increase its membership in the Senate. Most important of all was its ability to promote the return of good feeling between the long-sundered sections of the country; to reward the devotion of its followers, not only with official recognition, but with something more valuable in the way of influence; to regain its power as representing once more, in an organised way, the conservative ideas and instincts of its earlier history. It had men like Bayard and Thurman in the Senate, and in the House of Representatives some leaders worthy of the new position and power it had conquered for itself.

No man ever did more conspicuous or timely service in any country within the same time than did Thomas F. Bayard during this period as a senator from the State of Delaware. His ability and lofty character, his relations with his associates on the personal side, his knowledge of every part of his country, but, above all, his never-failing courage and honesty in opposing every financial scheme of doubtful soundness, gave him a unique position. Had his advice been followed, either by his opponents when in power, or by his friends when they succeeded to it, the United States would long ago have been placed in the most advantageous position so far as their finances were concerned, and the party to which he was attached would not have been subjected to attack and capture by a gang of