WHERE MONEY IS TOO PLENTIFUL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVI, Issue 12590, 27 August 1901, Page 7

WHERE MONEY IS TOO PLENTIFUL.

(rif.Bits.) Portugal is suffering from a plethora of money just now. Not gold, of course; nor silver; but copper. So vast is the supply of this inferior metal that ordinary people are exceedingly chary of changing such few gold coins as they may come into possession of. The copper coinage is big and cumbersome, and'it is also depreciated so that, in order to.avoid being burdened with it, it has become the custom, in the larger cities at all events, to use tramtickets as currency. ■ln the provinces postage stamps are made to serve a similar purpose. Meanwhile the Government at Lisbon goes on serenely minting the obnoxious coins—which nobody will use—at the rate of some eighty tons a month. It is not unlikely that, in the end, the authorities will find themselves placed in a similar quandary to that which overtook the United States Government in 1892, When at the bidding of the so-called “ Silver party” it tried to force upon the people a practically unlimited number of silver dollars. The coins were returned to> the Treasury in exchange for “greenbacks” almost as soon as issued, and, as more more continued to be minted, the accflinulation grew naturally and rapidly greater a of these hug© piece® of metal in the vaults at Washington. Three months later, and the number had more than doubled!! Then, one day, the enormous weight broke down the walls, catching two unhappy: clerks, who were literally BURIED ALIVE UNDER AN AVALANCHE : OP MONET.

It took the best part, of a couple_ of days to dig out their mangled remains, the labourers working with their big, broad-bladed shovels as though the precious stuff was merely so much refuse slag cut of a shut-doWn blast-furnace. After that the Government coined only so much silver money as the nation could conveniently absorb. In Venezuela, during the early days of its existence as a free and Sovereign State, the Government issued guaranteed, banknotes in, such quantities that-if usea.tpJm said—hall jestingly and half in .earnest—that at Caracas paper was worth three cents a pound until the Government got hold of it and started converting it into money. Then its value immediately depredated 50 per cent. In the United State, in 1665, towards the close of the great CivE War between North and South, an even more marked depreciation set in in Confederate paper money. Mr Jefferson Davis, tte President of the Southern Confederacy, issued daily enormous numbers of notes of the face value of millions of dollars,-.-.wherewith-to .pay-his troops; but in the,-end,® 20dol* note got to be worth only cents. Indeed, in some remote country districts the .shopkeepers, unable to keep track of the constantly fluctuating currency values, were in the habit of weighing the money in their scales against a certain quantity of goods—a simple if somewhat roughrand-ready-way out of the difficulty, but possessingl the obvious disadvantage of only maKng a lOdol note equal, so far as purchasing power, went, to a Idol one. :■ IN THE EARLY DATS OP THE GREAT KLONDTKB BUSH gold was the on© thing tlkV is whk' , p!«tallful.. The natural and inevitable' •that it became almost valueless when exchanged against provisions or other necessaries of life. Men with thousands of dollars in their pockets found that their wealth would only purchase them infinitesimal quantities of flour, bacon, etc., at a time, and that only os a favour. Of course, however, tMs state of things only lasted for a very short period; for where money is plentiful, there, sooner or later,, and usually sooner rather than later, come the,, things that money will buy. . , TB jpuriirg the -ultra-prosperous times-which burst upon England in the autumn of 1887 many financiers were, strange .as, if may appear, absolutely ruined owing to the ab-, normal and unexpected plentifulness of money. In London alone it was estimated that many hundreds of millions of pounds sterling were lying idle awaiting remunerative , investment. The Bank of England on March 15, 1888, lowered its discount rate to 2 per cent, a proceeding up till then unheard of, and everywhere was heard the wail of the poor capitalist, whose hoards were lying Useless, - because unremustrerative, af. his banker’s. -a..- \•