their issues. It provides for the redemption of _currency_ with _currency_, thus making the resumption of specie payment impossible, so long as legal tender notes are in circulation. It locks up from one-tenth to four-tenths of all the capital invested in banking, and compels the people to pay interest on this amount without receiving any equivalent. It fixes arbitrarily the amount of circulating medium for the whole country; the amount being $356,000,000 in legal tender notes, and about the same amount in national currency; and of this last amount the banks are compelled to keep on hand a reserve of from fifteen to twenty-five per cent on all their bills and deposits, thus leaving for circulation, throughout the entire country, not more than $550,000,000, the whole of which is irredeemable in coin. It places the finance of the whole country under the control of one man--the secretary of the treasury. The amount of currency being fixed by law, and apportioned throughout the country, with no means for its increase, it is not difficult for speculators to withdraw sufficient from circulation to affect injuriously the commerce of the country. The combined corporate interest of the country can, at pleasure, corner such amounts as to create a stringency, and if desired, a panic. We have shown in a former chapter the combination existing between railroad corporations and Wall street brokers, and their control of the finances of the country. We have also shown the effect of the legal tender decision upon the financial interests of the country, and the large benefits the railroad corporations are deriving from it; and that they controlled to a great and dangerous extent all departments of the government. Under the present financial and banking system they hold the whole country at their mercy. They fix prices upon all the farm products of the country. Having full knowledge of the amount of currency in the banks of the great commercial centers, as well as the amounts in the different parts of the country, with the means in their own hands of controlling and expanding these amounts at pleasure, by withdrawing, or as it is termed "cornering" the necessary sum, they fix the price of all articles of commerce, and stocks, and gold. The government, under the present financial policy, cannot prevent this state of things. It has no reserve with which to aid the people. Nor can the banks, if they had the inclination, remedy this evil. The business interests of the country require more money. The government, as well as the banks, are prohibited from issuing more. Because of the lack of quantity required by commerce, the banks are, as a general thing, without any considerable surplus on hand. When these corporations and brokers desire a stringency in the market, they withdraw from the banks a few millions of dollars and lock it up. It is withdrawn from the already insufficient amount in circulation, and legitimate business languishes. Having their vast