Mr. CUSHING. The gentleman from Kent (Mr
Chambers) spoke of the stock of the Baltimore
and Ohio railroad company being at one hun-
dred and fifteen. My colleague (Mr. Daniel)
met that conclusively by showing that when
it paid six per cent', in gold the price only
ranged about eighty, and has been as low as
sixty, and the gentleman from Kent docs not
claim that because it was then nearly a
twelve per cent. stock, that twelve per cent
was a fair price for money. While the prices
were so reduced, possessing some four and
a half million of dollars, they declared no
extra dividend. They bad one million dol-
lars of United States stocks, one million in
bank, one million in Northern Central stocks
and one million in Central Ohio, which
would make it about a twelve per cent. stock,
while it is now at one hundred and sixteen,
and may be had in the market at one hun-
dred and fifteen. Parties have forced it up
to one hundred and fifteen, buying it at that
rate to control the stock.
Mr. CHAMBERS. it was the bonds I spoke
of, not the stock.
Mr. CUSHING. The bonds have been as
low as eighty, as mentioned by my colleague.
The gentleman from Prince George's (Mr.
Clarke) spoke of the legitimate value of
money. That is a question which the world
has been debating from the time there was
any circulating medium until now, and 1
venture to assert that never on two days has
the value of money been the same. It has
fluctuated from three per cent. to forty. It
fluctuates from day to day in every civilized
country in the world. There never has been
any barometer found delicate enough to mea-
sure the fluctuations of the money market.
Mr. CLARKE. The use of money, I admit,
fluctuates, and I desire that some fixed rate
should prevail in the State of Maryland. 1
said that gold and silver have a real fixed
value, Their fluctuates from time 'to
time, but I desire that in the State of Maryland
it shall be made a fixed rate.
Mr. CUSHING. That is to say, for the good
of the State of Maryland we are to take the
winds from every quarter of the world and
fix them stationary by some human law in
the State of Maryland. We can no more fix
the fluctuating value of money in the State
of Maryland, while it rises and falls in every
other State and in every other country of the
civilized world, than we can stop the wind
from blowing or the rain from descending.
It is beyond the reach of human law. You
may make penalties, but you dare not enforce
them, and cannot. The instant you attempt
to enforce them you destroy the whole com-
mercial progress of the State. You might
as well attempt to regulate the price men
shall pay for flour as to regulate the price
they shall pay for the use of money. You
might as well pass sumptuary laws with re-
gard to every single thing you use, to fix the |
price, as to fix the price of money by your
law.
The gentleman has told us that mercantile
men in sound business do not require money
at more than six percent.; that they cannot
afford to borrow money at more than six per
cent. I have no doubt the gentleman thought
that that was so. Yet, if he will inquire
into the commercial history of the mercan-
tile men of the United States, he will find
that the soundest men of business, with the
largest capital, nut only do but can afford
to borrow money at ten and twelve per cent.,
or whatever it is worth, provided they can
use it to make it worth more. if the gentle-
man had been acquainted with our commer-
cial history be would have known that for
years throughout the commercial community
of the United States the rule of six per cent.
has been replaced by a rule of five per cent. for
six months credit, which amounts to ten per
cent. per annum interest which the purchaser
pays tor the use of the money.
Mr. CLARKE, That is the difference between
cash and credit.
Mr. CUSHING. And as to the farmers who
cannot make six per cent.—if you take a
farm where there is a capital invested of one
thousand dollars, and if including the labor
which be puts upon it, out of the whole pro-
ceeds be cannot make sixty dollars a year, I
ask you how he can live? The gentleman
must not forget in estimating what he pro-
duces to take account of what he consumes.
A man in business takes what be makes and
pays his expenses out of it, and the farmer
must do the same. And if it were true that
the farmers throughout the United States do
not make, labor and all, six per cent. upon
the capital invested in the farms of the
United States, it would amount to starving
every man who ever went upon a farm, A
man upon a farm of one hundred acres at
one hundred dollars an acre has a capital of
ten thousand dollars. Will not that produce
six hundred dollars a year? Will not the
man with a thousand acres realize six thou-
sand dollars a year? We know that some-
times they make sixty thousand dollars. It
depends entirely upon the culture of the
land, the kind of product, the state of the
market, and a thousand fluctuating things.
The same thing that makes corn worth a
dollar a bushel here and in the State of Illi-
nois tell cents, the difference of circumstan-
ces, causes money to have a high price in
large cities. The gentleman says it is due to
speculation and extravagance. That is new
to me, that speculation, unfounded upon any
sound business, has been the cause from the
beginning of our commercial history until
now, for the fluctuating interest on money in
the larger cities. If that be so has not specu-
lation controlled the money market from the
beginning of the civilized world until now?
There never has been a time in any com- |
