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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 69

The Man With a Sovereign in his Hand

The Man With a Sovereign in his Hand

triumphantly laughs at his neighbor who possesses a note of the collapsed bank; but the man with the gold does not reflect how many pounds he has been done out of in his business by the fluctuations in the value of his property caused by the see-sawing of the financial wirepullers when they have alternately expanded and contracted the currency for their profit and his loss. It is asserted that Sparta, the first Roman Republic, Carthage, and every country while working under a numerary system of the currency has been prosperous. A purely numerary system is incompatible with a despotism, whether the tyrant be a king or an oligarchy. The Roman emperor, Octavius, it is said, wished to return to the numerary system of the first republic, but who was to control the emission of the currency? "To entrust the Senate with the tremendous powers would be to deliver up the government to them. The power would probably be abused. To regulate the currency himself would expose him to the attack of every dissatisfied class." No government in Australasia has yet arisen that could affix a sign on every money-token sent into circulation equivalent to the brand S,C of the Roman republic. The numerary brand of the famed iron currency of Lycurgus was, it is believed, the secret of its value. The famous William Pitt, like Augustus, quailed before the capitalists of his age, who were the masters of the Government debt. Mr. Pitt, with the Rom an emperor, saw that a numerary paper emission was a system of taxation equable in its incidence—the very thing the capitalists dislike. Thwarted in his object of fair play, he petulantly exclaimed that a national paper currency was to the bankers what a policeman was to a thief. I find that your Mr. Verrall, like Augustus Cæsar, has found page 13 how dangerous it is to propound an honest currency—the Roman was wise before attempting the deed, and thereby saved his political position; Mr. Vernall made the discovery at the expense of his place in the Legislature—but, still, magna est veritas et prevalebit. The present system, backed up by the gold and silver delusion,