SYDENHAM NEAR
PHILADELPHIA, [Pa.], April 3rd, 1852.
MY DEAR SIR: My
thanks for your Report on a change in the coinage, which I have not failed to
read. The subject, as it has always appeared to me, is not an easy one to
manage. In reading upon it, I have sometimes been ready to give up; and the
most skilled in it are, after all, prone to end in guess-work, which they
prefer to call "approximation." You are aware of this I see, though
handling the whole matter very well.
I fully go with you
in your most material point, the proportion
of currency to production. What harm can arise you ask (page 9) from any
probable increase of the precious metals, if both are allowed to swell the volume
of currency? Your just answer follows. To my view, your closing sentences of
the paragraph on page 7 are equally sound. An enlightened manufacturer in
England once said to me that England could supply the whole world with
manufactures. China included I asked? Yes he replied, "and another planet
toboot, as large as our globe, if we could only open a market in another.
Markets are all we want." He assumed that modern machinery gave England a
productive working power equal to a population of three hundred millions. This
is about the calculation of the Prince Joinville in his novel pamphlet, when he
said that steam would now give to one French sailor the power of twenty. If
this be anything like good guess-work, production must be greatly ahead of
currency in the world. I confess I should rather be disposed to say, (to go on
a little with guess-work,) that if the yield, annually of the precious metals
were five times greater than it is at present, or than it is all likely to be
for years and years to come, it would still lag much behind. production, and
therefore be insufficient to produce the best results upon the wealth comforts
and prosperity of communities. I observe that our minister in London, Mr.
Lawrence, no bad guesser I should think on such matters, appears under no
apprehension of a surfeit of gold from California. Your bill may lead us to
expect silver change enough for our present wants; and I hope that the
principles of your well-matured and carefully drawn Report may lay the
foundation of more extensive good, by helping to keep down, under the authority
of such a senatorial document, all fears among us of the metalitic currency
ever becoming too over-abundant, though the California mines, with those of
Australia in addition, should yield far more than they have ever yet done.
I received your
cordial acknowledgment of the 9th of February of one of my antiquated Treasury
Reports. I always visit Washington with pleasure, being sure to meet with so
many there to make it agreeable; but it seems to me that, just now, only two
classes of persons have any business there; our Legislators and our President-makers!
SOURCE: Charles
Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical
Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of
Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 139-40
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