A LAND FOR LIMITED INCOMES.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 274, 28 April 1875, Page 3

A LAND FOR LIMITED INCOMES.

Students of political econoray are familiar with the fact of the enormous depreciation of French assignats during the Revolution. As a curious illustration of the invariable result of the same excess on a small as wel as a large scale, the following account of the depreciated currency in San Domingo at the present time may be quoted. We extract it from a letter which appeared in the New York Nation, of a late date, signed “ Henry B. Blackwell ” : from Santo Domingo, with the United States Commission, some three years ago, we visited Port-au-Prince, and found the system of inflation in full operation there. On landing we were told that specie was no longer in use (except among the importers), and that it would be necessary to exchange our gold and silver for ‘the money of the Republic.’ Accordingly we repaired to the store of Mr Hepburn, an enterprising colored American, and requested the equivalent of a gold dollar. To our amazement the clerk presented us with a huge pile of notes, the Haytian greenbacks, quite too voluminous for convenient transportation in so warm a climate. The pile contained 390, the rate of exchange that day

being 890 to 1, We promptly reconsidered our request, and substituted for our dollar a silver half-dollar, and for this we received 195 in‘the Republican currency.’ Feeling elated by our unexpected opulence, we invited several of our American friends to accompany us to the market place, and there treated them, with reckless generosity, to many luscious varieties of tropical fruits. We afterwards spent two days in rambling about the ruinous old city, indulging our fancy by purchases of palm-leaf baskets, melon-seed necklaces and bracelets, walking sticks, &c. Yet, would you believe it, Mr Editor, after paying for all these, I still retain in my possession 120dol, the unspent remainder of my silver half-dollar, and am tempted to make another visit to that genial clime before long, for the purpose of revelling in luxury with the ample means at my command. Of course this pleasant picture has its sombre shades, upon which our unprincipled hard money monopolists might dwell. For instance, all imported goods, clothing, flour, salt fish, domestics, &c., have to be paid for in gold. How these products of civilisation can ever be paid for at all by the poor women who throng the market-place with their heavy loads of fruit, and vegetables, and coffee, carried upon their heads in wooden bowls or baskets, over mountain paths, often twenty miles or more, is a mystery explained, perhaps, by their half-naked and wholly barbarous condition. Strange to say, they do not fully appreciate their blessings, for every new issue of paper money, putting up gold to a still more exorbitant premium, is followed by a political revolution.”