two gallons of syrup from one-tenth of an acre, which would be 220 gallons per acre, at a cost of ten cents per gallon. If this gave 7 pounds of sugar to the gallon, the result would be 1540 pounds to the acre. Mr. J. H. SMITH, of Illinois, states that from an acre he produced 225 gallons of syrup, and from this he obtained 1,575 pounds of crystalizable sugar, being 7 pounds to the gallon. This, at ten cents per pound, is $157 per acre, besides 115 gallons of molasses. The prospect is, however, that the market for sugar in the United States will grow with great rapidity. It is remarkable in the above table that the weight per head used has increased from 13 pounds in 1841, to as high as 36 pounds in 1854, when the price was low, and it has since mantained a high figure, but there is a large amount of Southern sugar, as well as maple, which works into the consumption of the West, and which does not appear in official reports. It is then obvious that the sugar consumed has been twothrds imported, and one third of Louisiana growth in ordinary years; but in 1854 the reverse was the case, when the crop then being large, so depressed prices that it was not profitable to import sugar. In the last year the Southern supply has been wholly wanting, and the importation has been large for the ten months, being equal to twenty-eight pounds per head for the 20,000,000 of Northern people, but it has sold at high prices, governed by the duty and the depreciation of paper. Thus, raw sugar in Cuba is 44 cents per pound, the duty is 2 cents per pound, making 7 cents, but the duty must be paid in gold, which is 33 per cent premium. This adds one-third to the duty, making it cost 77 cents. The exchange to pay 44 cents in Cuba is 147, which adds 12 cents to the cost, making it 9 cents per pound, and the price in New York is 10 cents, or 150 per cent higher than in Havana. Under these circumstances, Northern sugar should succeed, but in its turn home-grown sugar as a manufacture must now pay the three per cent tax. This is small in proportion, since every pound of sugar now consumed at the North pays five cents tax, and when manufactured into confectionary three per cent more. Of this tax, 14 cents per pound is due to the currency or "green backs," on which the Secretary of the Treasury alleges he borrows without interest.

In France and most countries of Europe, local sugar has come to supplant cane sugar to such an extent, as to interfere with the government In the United States the same field is open to the Northern grower, whether the article adopted is beet root or sorghs.

revenues.

A UNIFORM NATIONAL CURRENCY.*

BY A WESTERN BANKER.

NEARLY a year ago the Secretary of the Treasury in his annual report, proposed two plans for the issue of a uniform national currency.

The first plan proposed was substantially the one under which the demand notes had already been issued. The dangers arising from increasing the currency of the country by a national issue large enough to be of benefit to the country, were thus concisely stated :

"The temptation, especially great in times of pressure and danger, to issue notes without adequate provision for redemption beyond means, however carefully provided and managed; the hazard of panics, precipitating demands for coin, concentrated on a few points and a single fund; the risk of a depreciated, depreciating, and finally worthless paper money; the immeasurable evils of dishonored public faith and national bankruptcy; all these are possible consequences of the adoption of a system of government circulation. It may be said, and perhaps truly, that they are less deplorable than those of an irredeemable bank circulation. Without entering into that comparison, the Secretary contents himself with observing that, in his judgment, these possible disasters so far outweigh the probable benefits of the plan that he feels himself constrained to forbear recommending its adoption.”

The principal features of the second plan were, " (1st) a circulation of notes bearing a common impression and authenticated by a common authority; (2d) the redemption of these notes by the associations and institutions to which they may be delivered for issue; and (3d) the security of that redemption by the pledge of the United States stocks, and an adequate provision of specie."

It proposed to create a national bank department, from which government notes should be issued to banking institutions, they depositing with the department a pledge of United States stocks to insure the prompt redemption of the currency. In other words, to establish a national bank department, similar in most respects to the present Bank Department of New York, and to offer "inducements to solvent existing institutions to withdraw the circulation issued under State authority, and substitute that provided by the authority of the Union. Thus, through the voluntary action of the existing institutions, aided by wise legislation, the great transition from a currency heterogeneous, unequal, and unsafe, to one uniform, equal, and safe, may be speedily and almost imperceptibly accomplished."

The report of the Secretary of the Treasury was prepared with the expectation then prevalent, that the rebellion was soon to be crushed, and the war substantially brought to a close by the midsummer following. Soon, however, the magnitude of the war became evident, the vast expenditure of nearly a million of dollars daily, made huge drafts upon the Treasury, and Congress saw that the urgent necessities of the government could not be supplied by the tardy action of banks, nor depend wholly on the sale of the bonds of the government. A general suspension of specie payments had taken place, and on February 25th, and July 11th,

*The Report of the Secretary of the Treasury for 1862 has appeared since this article was writter.

1862, the Congress of United States passed two separate acts, authorizing the issue in the aggregate of three hundred millions of paper currency, which was made a legal tender by the terms of the law. Thus, the Congress of the United States, by the force of circumstances, or rather by the necessities of the government, speedily reversed the proposal of the Secretary of the Treasury; the second plan was postponed, and the first, which was thought to be the least desirable, was brought successfully into operation.

The second plan yet remains untried. Our present Congress, at its last session, passed by a very large majority the act of July 11th, 1862, which, in addition to the issue of $150,000,000 of legal tender notes, also provided that $35,000,000 of this issue should be in notes of small denominations, and also gave the Secretary of the Treasury authority to establish a government engraving establishment. Both of these provisions, though opposed by the bank interest, were enacted by a Congress largely composed of members interested in the banks of the different States which had heretofore enjoyed the monopoly of furnishing the paper currency of the country. There can be but little doubt, therefore, of the passage by the same body of an act establishing a national bank department, provided the administration in power shall recommend such action. We believe its adoption is demanded by the people, and that no time ever has or ever will again exist like the present to remedy the greatest financial evil of the times, which for the last fifty years has been a fruitful subject of discussion.

The circulation of the banks of the United States, according to the last official report in 1861, was about $203,000,000, as follows:

The charters of the State banks of Ohio and Indiana, and a large proportion of the safety fund banks of New York, together with other institutions, are to expire within the next three years.

The currency of the Northwestern States to the amount of $25,000,000 is either already retired, or is so discredited as not hereafter to circulate except in the immediate vicinity of its place of issue.

If to these amounts were to be added the currency of the States in rebellion, now hopelessly bankrupt, the aggregate would make a sum total of at least $100,000,000, or nearly one-half of the bank currency of the country.

The bank currency is therefore now less than at any time during the

last twenty years, and if the chartered banks are to expire with the limitation of their charters, only about one-half of the bank currency of 1861 will remain to undergo the gradual transition from a State to a national system.

The legal tender currency of the government has received a universal circulation. It is now fulfilling the function heretofore performed by gold and silver, which necessity has converted into articles of merchandise. It has been greedily received in the South among enemies, as well as in the North among friends, on the farthest frontier, and in the Pacific States where paper was never before recognized as money; it has been hoarded by the people and the army; and it has been held in reserve by the banks themselves, because it would redeem their own currency, and because they know it to be more reliable than their own issues. To one who has witnessed its popularity in the West, as well as the East, it is not surprising that $200,000,000 of this currency has been so readily absorbed, that $12,000,000 could not be obtained at the great commercial center a few days since, when required for government purposes. The legal tender currency, in spite of the speculations of gold in Wall-street and the high premium, (hereafter to suffer a decline as rapid as its advance, upon the triumph of our armies,) has been a success, and the people throughout the country, who are untrammelled by the influence of corporations and associations, desire that the remainder of the bank currency, whose average existence is less than the average life of a citizen, shall give place to a permanent government currency which shall be safe, convertible, and uniform.

Believing that the system already inaugurated is soon to be perfected, that our legislators will seek rather the good of the whole people than the interest of a few private corporations, and that the government is hereafter to control the currency as originally contemplated by the Constitution, we propose simply at present, to suggest a few of the practical details of the system, reserving other questions concerning a national currency, to which passing events have given a new interest, for future consideration.

1. The currency issued to the banks should be safe.

The plan of Secretary CHASE proposes to issue currency to parties only on the deposits of United States stocks. The parties by whom it is received are to be responsible for the currency issued to them; but it is not clear that the liability of the government is to extend beyond the value of the stocks. It is intended that the government shall control the issue, which shall be based on its own funds and at a rate to be fixed by itself. It is said that the bonds of the United States, with its vast resources of every kind, are the best basis in the world for a currency. This we believe; and no matter how large the debt of the country may be at the close of the present rebellion, if the finances of the country are so managed that the interest on the debt is promptly paid, the bonds cannot depreciate largely in the money markets of the world. The government, by guaranteeing this currency, would merely reassert her intention at all hazards to provide the interest on her debt; and every argument that may be adduced to show her ability to meet promptly her liability, will serve only to strengthen the propriety of her guaranteeing the national currency. Such a guaranty would in fact only be a promise that the government, in

case of the failure of some corporation to whom she had issued notes, would purchase her own bonds at the rate fixed by herself. If the government should decline to guaranty such a currency, the issue of which she had assumed and controlled, it would seem to discredit its own funds. If, in addition to the security deposited, the government should insure the final redemption of all currency at par, no monetary crisis could ever shake the faith of the people in the notes. If a single bank should fail its currency would still pass from hand to hand, and there could hardly an instance occur in which the government, after having wound up the corporation, could be a loser. If losses should happen the abuses of the system would soon be corrected, and the increased faith of the people in the currency and the demand and appreciation of government stocks would much more than compensate for all such losses.

2. The currency issued to the banks should be convertible.

It is not sufficient that the government currency should be redeemed at the place of issue. Great abuses have already been the result of such laws. Remote points are sure to be selected as places of issue, and the discount upon bank notes becomes as varied as the currency itself. The great Eastern cities-New York, Boston, and Philadelphia-are the great centers of trade, and every bank and banker throughout the country always has funds on deposit at one of these points. The national currency should either be redeemed at one of those cities, or by agents at some one of the great cities of the country to be selected by the party issuing currency. The rate of redemption at the agency selected should be equal to the cost of transportation of bank notes from the place of the agency to the place of issue. This rate would vary from to of one per cent discount, and should never exceed the last named amount. Thus the whole currency of the country would be so nearly of a uniform value that it would be received by every bank from Maine to Minnesota. Statements made weekly or monthly by the different agencies in the large cities, giving the amount on deposit with them by the country banks for the redemption of currency, would at all times indicate the solvency and ability of the banks of the country; and the increased amount of deposits in the great commercial cities would insure this influence and cooperation in the organization of the national system.

3. The currency should be uniform.

If any man has the curiosity, or will take the trouble to study the statistics contained in either of the quarto volumes which are weekly published in all the large cities under the name of "Counterfeit Detectors," he will find that there are in existence nearly sixteen hundred different banks, and that from these banks are daily being issued more than ten thousand different kinds of bank notes, and that a large portion of these issues have been frequently copied and put in circulation by the counterfeiter and his copartners in business.

We have to-day, in every loyal State with the exception of California and Oregon, a currency issued and encouraged by sanctions of law, more than forty different banking laws, depending on the judgment, caprice, or iniquity of the Legislatures of thirty-four different States, and which are changed or repealed as often as pliant and plastic legislators can be moved or moulded by the influence of monied institutions or corporations, until