Staunton Spectator

The men who are making the money don't stand on price.--They pay whatever price is asked for any article they may want, and the man who has plenty of money want a great many things. This is one reason--the principal one, we imagine--why prices are so inflated. The reason why every other article of consumption has been run up to ten, fifty, or an hundred prices, is because some crazy people are always found to buy them, and others in consequence [sic] are compelled to do so.

We were surprised to learn that flour had suddenly risen in Staunton to $50. per barrel. There certainly can be no sufficient reason for this rapid increase. Although the last wheat crop was not a large one, it was not much below the average, and there ought to be a considerable surplus in Augusta. Bad as our currency is, it would not, of itself, warrant so great a rise--other causes must have contributed to it.

In this crisis of our affairs the policy of our Government should be directed to stimulate productions, and to diminish consumption. But by some strange infatuation, our official act as if they were influenced by an opposite purpose.

The administration of the impressment law tends directly to repress production. No man knows when he sows his crop, whether he will be allowed to reap and market it. The act regulating impressment seemed to be very fair on its face. It provides, while property might be taken at schedule prices, in the hands of speculators, it could only be taken at a fair impressment value in the hands of the producer. This was fair and right, and farmers were content with it. The discrimination was formed in sound policy. But by a system of indirection, the law is practically set aside. When a farmer's grain or cattle is taken now, and valued by disinterested parties, if the valuations be higher than the schedule, an appeal is taken by the Government agent to the Commissioners, and they cut down the price to the schedule [illegible]. The speculator thus fares better than the farmer, for he gets his pay promptly, while the producer gets the same pay after a long delay, and some [illegible] heavy expense, in trying [illegible] his rights.

[illegible] system of mal-administration dis- [illegible] the farmer, and tends directly to diminish productions.

There is another matter connected with the food question which merits attention. A great parade was made two years ago, about suppressing the distillation of grain. Crude laws were passed, by which most of the distilleries were stopped; and a monopoly given to the favored few. We doubt not that whiskey was necessary for the medical bureau, but we are not satisfied that the law was sufficiently guarded in reference to the quantity to be made, or the grain to be used. We are of the opinion that the distillation of wheat should have been prohibited altogether. Wheat is the staff of life, and should be kept for the sustenance of the people. If whiskey must be made, it should be made of the coaser [sic] grains. This is a more serious matter than may be at first supposed.--We have one distillery in our suburbs which is reported to consume 100 bushels of wheat per day. If this be true, it is equivalent to abstracting from the food of the people, 20 barrels of flour per day, and about 50 bushels of offal.--In a year this would be over 7,000 barrels. It is a fair estimate to say, that 10 barrels per year, will supply a family of seven persons, and consequently that amount distilled here would supply bread to about five thousand people.--There are other distilleries in the county, which, in the aggregate, probably use as much as the larger one here.--Thus wheat enough to supply ten thousand people, near half the population of this county, is annually consumed in the distilleries.

If corn and rye were used, the damage would be much less, for these grains are not so important for bread, and the swill serves to fatten hogs.

Should not the Legislature take this matter in hand?

But there are other measures tending to discourage production. The practice of withdrawing, every now and then, hundreds of our stoutest and most athletic negroes from farming operations, to work on the fortifications near Richmond, is a serious evil. These negroes are our best farm hands, and for every one so withdrawn, the production of grain is diminished several hundred bushels. Why cannot the deserters, and other wrong-doers, be taken from Castle Thunder, and put to work on the fortifications? Where too, are the idlers about Richmond, and the conscripts of Camp Lee? We think this system of employing negroes ought to be stopped.

Finally, the militia bill, we fear, is to be one of the most unfortunate measures yet adopted, for the agriculture of the State--every boy over 16, and every old man under 55, is liable to be called into the field. If you take all who can plow, and sow and reap, how is grain enough o be raised for consumption of the people? We have men enough, between 18 and 45, to fight our battles.--The fear is not of a deficiency of men, but of provisions.

We throw out these suggestions for the consideration of the public. But we do so with little hope of their having any good effect. When the popular fervor is up, reason is unheeded.

We perceive that some of those members of the Legislature who are particularly wise in their own conceit, but in the estimation of nobody else, are tinkering with the question of prices. They would be better employed in seeking to regulate by law, the drift of the clouds, or the flow of the tides. In the latter case, they would, at least do no mischief. But we fear, that in the former, they may do great harm.

The idea of regulating prices by act of Legislature, is not only absurd, but is positively mischievous. These quack legislators, ignore the teachings of history, as well as the deductions of reason. This same experiment has been tried, over and over again, in other countries, and always failed. Our fathers attempted it in the revolutionary struggle, and Washington admonished them, if they did not stop it, they would starve the army.

We say that the whole thing is simply absurd. Prices depend on the condition of the currency, and the rates of supply and demand.

What is the price of anything? It depends on its relation to the currency for the time being. When gold and silver are the circulating medium, it means the amount of gold and silver for which the whole can be exchanged. So when gold and silver are abandoned, and paper substituted as a currency, it means the amount of paper for which it can be exchanged. If the render money plenty, prices will be high--if you render it scarce, they will be low. Here is the whole matter in a nutshell. Before the war, gold was the standard of value, and wheat would bring one dollar, and corn half a dollar per bushel.--Since the war, we have adopted paper as the currency, and we have ten times as much paper as we had gold. As a matter of course, prices have risen to ten times their old rates, and wheat now brings near ten dollars and corn five.--The only practical way of bringing down prices, is by reducing the amount of currency. Retire half the currency, and you will reduce prices one half.--Double the currency, and you will double the prices.

But to talk of leaving the currency as it is, and then, arbitrarily requiring certain classes of people to sell their commodities for one-half the present rates, is so preposterous, that we wonder how sane men can entertain the proposition for an instant.

Let us look at it for a moment. Shoes are now worth $35. Suppose Legislature provides that no man shall sell shoes for more than $12.50, under a heavy penalty; what will be the result? Will it cheapen shoes? Unquestionably not, for no man can afford to make and sell them for that price. He will therefore not sell at a loss, but close up his shop. So with the blacksmith, the tailor, and the weaver. The moment that they find they are required to sell at a loss they will stop work. Instead of high priced goods, we will have none.

How will it be with the farmer? It formerly cost a farmer about $300 to hire and maintain a hand. He could then afford to sell flour at $5. Now his expenses, in the depreciated currency, are ten times as great, and of course he must have ten times as great, and of course he must have ten times as much for his flour. When you say to him by law you must not sell your flour for more than five dollars, and if you do, you must go to jail, he will say, "very well! I shall not violate your law by selling at more than $5--I will not sell at all--I will keep what I have for my own use, and in future, I will raise no more than is necessary for my family consumption." What will be the effect? Production will stop and starvation will follow. Instead of high priced grain, we will have none!

These silly legislators are very innocently, but very ignorantly, striving to aggravate the very evil of which they complain. They will shut up all the workshops and stop all production of agricultural productions, and what they? Scenes of unparalleled distress will ensue, followed by mobs, anarchy and bloodshed! People will take by force, if they cannot buy for money. They will not see their wives and children starve.

We earnestly hope the legislators will have common sense enough to reject these demagogue ideas. Let them strike at the root of the evil. Reduce the currency. Put that on a secure foundation, and prices will soon adjust themselves.

But, if in spite of all warnings, they are determined to plunge the community into the vortex of anarchy and suffering, we beg our readers to remember, that we entered our earnest protest against it; and if violence follows, we hope it will be directed against the authors of the mischief--the solid legislators, who from stupidity or a selfish desire to gain notoriety, have brought these calamities on the country. If any are to be roughly handled, let it be the guilty, and not the innocent.

P. S.--Since the above was put in type, we are pleased to see that the Senate, upon the matter being brought to a test vote, has had the good sense to defeat the bill by a considerable majority.