PRESIDENT LINCOLN ON "DEFLATION." [To THE EDITOR 55 THE "
SPECTATOR."]
Sta,—The Manufacturers' Record of March 2nd quotes from a letter of Lincoln read out in the U.S. Senate last meath the following passage :— " I warn the American people not to permit a repetition of the crimes of history. Following great periods of deflation, if drastic artificial deflation is attempted disastrous results must follow. I warn thein not to permit the money power to take advantage of the condition of the people. I warn them not to permit high and usurious interest rates, contraction of the currency, or any change in the circulating medium that will affect the debt contracted until it has been discharged. Any movement to artificially deflate before the debt can be
paid, to change the medium or circulation upon which the debt was contracted, would be a crime."
It does not appear that Lincoln's " plain people " have taken Lincoln's warning of the " money power " very seriously. The Wall Street Journal of February 6th gives me the following figures of the earnings of the banks operating the present " system " during the past two years of desperate "defla- tion" :—Paid-up capital of the banks affiliated by the Federal Bank Act, 103 million dollars; earnings in 1920, 181 millions; 1921, 122 millions. 'To earn 303 millions on a paid-up capital of 103 millions goes far to justify Voltaire's assertion that the art of modern government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can for the benefit of the other third.—I am,
Brede Place, Sussex.
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