Change Needed.

Manawatu Herald, 19 October 1893, Page 3

Change Needed.

The peculiarity of American finance is clearly set torth in Broadbrim's New York letter to the Chroni h wherein he writes : — Have I lived to see it — the despised greenback selling at two per cent, premium, with gold at par and I silver worth about fifty-five or sixty cents on the dollar ! And it is not the ten dollar greenback nor the hundred dollar greenback ; but the insignificent ragged ones and twos, and this week rich bankers, great Importing merchants, railroad corporations, and heavy manufacturers, stood in a long row in a dingy little shop in Wall -street and poured out bags full of gold, and taking at two cent one dollar and two dollar greenbacks. This week the New York Central made a draft on the Chemical Bank for eight hundred thousand dollars in small bills to pay its hands along the road. The bank informed Presi dent Cepew that they could not accommoda te them ; they sent him two hundred thousand dollars in small bills, and advised him to pay the hands in cheques so as to draw the greenbacks out of the local banks. He was " a canny chief" that small money buyer in Wall street who foresaw the coming scarcity of small bills. He was a man of excellent credit, who had been many years in his dingy little office buying foreign exchange and commercial paper. He had about three hundred thousand dollars of his own, but he borrowed on short time from his friends. He then sent out agents gathering small bills, and now comes the time when he reaps the reward of his foresight. All our large dry goods houses need small bills tor change, and must have them. Banks need them, and in fact they are one of the most important factors in trade. It is a strange condition of things, but it gives us a gratifying evidence of the value of Uncle Sam's promises to pay. Gold at par and greenbacks at two per cent premium ; banks bursting, factories closing, cotton and woollen mills suspending, and even the most fortunate of them working half time ; Congress all afloat on the silver bill, everything looking very rocky ; but in the midst of this financial cyclone Uncle Sam's promise to pay is better than solid, shining gold. Hooray for Uncle Sam ! Hooray again ! Hoo-Hooray and a Tiger !