GREENBACKS.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 10628, 5 June 1897, Page 2

GREENBACKS.

A CABLfI message (n Thursday's lsane anaonnoed thst the United States Government has decided to withdraw "greenbaoks" from circnlatlon. The "{"teenbaok " Is a nations! bank note varying In value from a dollar npwurde. It dates fiom the time of the great civil war. Both the Federal and Confederate Governments leauod paper money in payment for provisions] and other things seized. Of oonrse the result of the war was to make Confederate notes valueless. The Federal paper was under a heavy dieoonud, being at) one time worth only 33 centß to the dollar, or abont 7s lOd hi the £1. This was mainly das to the uncertainty of its redemption in specie, but the fall was accentuated by enormous amounts of forged paper pnt In circulation. The note then was of simple form, and had no watermark. When things settled dawn after the war a most elaborate design, engraved by special machinery, was adopted, Bat the ingenious photographer managed to produce photographlo imitations, Then the notes were printed in different color?, which bofllad the photo* grapher, and as a farther precaution a special patented psper was vied, This oonsists of ilnon and cotton fibre, with a peculiar design in threads of dlk, so that forgery is now very UDCOmmon, though not nnkuown, The greenback reaohed its lowcob limit of value in 1851, after whioh it gradually rose, and on the rosumption of opode payments in 1879 it reached par, at which ib has since remained for purposes of internal ourrenoy. At first) the artificial Inflation of tbe currency, and the high prices ruling for farm produce, brought snoh apparent prosperity to the Wen torn farmers that they were unaninionsiln favor of the isuue of paper money. In 1874 a " Greenback party " held a convention at Indianopolis, and nominated Peter Cooper for the presidency, and he received 97 per cent of the popular vote. But so persletent was the ourrenoy depreciation nntil epeolo payments were resumed $ha& In 1880 the Greenback candidate, James B. Weaver, polled only 3£ per oont of the popular vote, aud by 1884 the idea of creating wealth by means of a bale of paper and a printing press was bo exploded that General Batlev, the Greenback candidate, reoeived only V3S per cent of the popular vote Since then nothing has been heard of a Greenbaok candidate. The cotes have been slowly withdrawn, but that process is now to fee hastened. It is not likely that it will create any great demand for gold, for the Greenbacks ciraulatod only as internal currency, and silver will do ds well as gold for that. The United States Treasury vaults are simply blocked with coSnad illver dollars, and these, no doubt, will be issued In plaoe of the notes.