Currency fallacies refuted, and paper money ... - University Library

92 PAPER MONEY VINDICATED.in over-exertion, to keep their families abovewant, •— would have enabled us to retain athome the intelligent and industrious part of ourpopulation, whom we are shipping off everymonth, by thousands, to countries more favorableto honest labour, and humble virtue,—andlast, but not least, would have deprived theopponents of the Factory Bill of their mainargument—the impossibility of obtaining a salefor their goods in the foreign market, unlessthey are manufactured by children,wages in this country are equal to thosewhose lowof menabroad.No credit is due to the sagacity of any onefor the employment of ipa-per as an instrumentof taxation ; for we resisted its use as long as wecould— we tried to do without it sooner thanwe were able ;and should we, at last, acquiescein its adoption, it is because we have no otherrefuge from national bankruptcy and a revolution.The struggle to return to the old systemhas been fatal to the fortunes, health, andlives of millions of our countrymen, butwe remainunconvinced of our error ;yet the delayhas had some good effects : and if, in the end,we are forced to take that only course whichProvidence has opened out for us, we shall berecompensed. A scene of peace, order, andplenty, will succeed to the terrible distractionsof the late, and the frightful forebodings ofthe present period. Other countries, following