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of gold and silver for the civilized world. We shall have in fact as a currency more than all Europe and America; it will amount to about three thousand millions of dollars-about a third more than there is now in Europe and America. Is there any reason why this increase shall not continue? We do not say it will in the same ratio; but we do say, that we are relatively, as it respects Europe, in a better condition for competing with them than we were in 1830. Our great material interests are improving more rapidly than theirs.

In looking at the statistics which we have presented of banks, instead of that great increase of banking capital and paper money which Mr. Walker speaks of so often, we find there has been an actual relative decrease, since 1830, in each, of three quarters, that is, of 75 per cent. The facts are these the positive increase of banking capital has been less than three hundred per cent; that of paper money has been about the same. The increase of the business of the country has been about one thousand per cent in the same period, showing, as we have stated, that there has been really a decrease in bank capital and paper money of 75 per cent.

It is difficult to see how any candid and unprejudiced man can, with the facts we have given before him, assert that the recent crisis was caused by our "mixed currency." If one dollar of paper money produced such results in 1857, why did not four dollars have, at least, as great an effect in 1830? There was no great commercial and financial disturbance at the latter period. In considering the influence of paper money, we are not disposed to undervalue it, and for argument's sake we will admit it to be all that it is said theoretically to be; it is impossible then to see how an amount, in any community, equal to only one and three-quarters per cent on the property of the community, could bring about such a state of things as existed in 1857.

We think an impartial and thorough investigation will convince any man, whose judgment is not beclouded by hobbies and theories, that the defect in our system, and the one from which our last great commercial and financial disturbance arose, is the abuse of the credit system. A careful examination of the condition and extent of commercial credits, and the amount of indebtedness existing at the time and for a year or two prior, will show this fact. But this branch of the subject we cannot discuss now.

Another fact in regard to these statistics we wish to notice-it is that in reference to the amount of property in the United States and the amount of our foreign debt. In 1855, Hon. James Guthrie, then Secretary of the Treasury, estimated the property of the United States as upwards of eleven thousand millions of dollars. This estimate was prepared evidently with care. It is certainly not too high for the present period. foreign debt is variously estimated from two hundred and fifty millions to five hundred millions of dollars. The latter sum is the highest figure of those who take the most desponding view of our financial and commercial condition, and, although we think it above the actual fact, we assume it for our calculation, and we find that we owe a foreign debt, which is chiefly in the form of private and public corporate securities, payable through a period of fifty years, in round figures, of four-and-a-half per cent on our property.

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, December 7th, 1858.

G. L. W.

Art. II.-COMMERCE OF AUSTRIA, WITH REFERENCE TO ITS CURRENCY.

BANK OF AUSTRIA-SUSPENSION-RESUMPTION-GEOGRAPHY OF AUSTRIA-ITS ORIGIN AND GROWTHWARS-PRESENT EXTENT AND POPULATION--BANKRUPTCIES-DEBT-REVENUE AND EXPENDITURES -BORROWING COMMERCIAL POLICY-MONEY-METALLIC-CONVENTION MONEY-OLD COINAGE NEW COINAGE-CURRENCY REFORM-BANK NOTES--PAPER NOT A LEGAL TENDER-BANK OF VIENNA -FORMATION CIRCULATION CONDITION-DECREE FOR RESUMPTION-EFFECT OF DECREE-NO CREDIT CURRENCY-COMMERCIAL POLICY OF AUSTRIA-IRON MANUFACTURES-GROWTH OF LIBERAL IDEAS CREDIT MOBILIER-RAILROADS--AGRIGULTURE--BEER-ROOT SUGAR, PROGRESS OF TAXES ON--IMPORTED SUGAR--COMMERCE OF AUSTRIA-MANUFACTURES-SPINDLES--COTTON MANUFAC TURE-RECIPROCAL INTERCOURSE-TARIFFS OF UNITED STATES, ZOLLVEREIN, AND AUSTRIA COMPARED IN UNITED STATES CURRENCY.

It is now ten years in June last since the revolutionary troubles of Europe compelled the National Bank of Austria to suspend its payments in specie; it has now by Imperial decrees, following the condition of the convention held in 1856, and also the currency convention of last year, resumed payments November 1st, 1858. This is an event which, with the extension of railroads in Germany, the amelioration of commercial restrictions, and the improved crops of the present year, is calculated to give a new impulse to the commercial relations of the United States with Austria, as well as the vast empire of Germany. We therefore enter into a brief outline of events in order to recognize the present aspect of affairs with greater precision.

Whoever regards the great panorama of Germany will be struck with the curious and picturesque view presented by the Austrian Empire. It presents the greatest variety of dialects, of costume, of custom, of interests, political and material, all blended under one Imperial sway, and moving with some degree of regular progress. If Austria has made less progress than some other States, since Rudolph, Count of Hapsburg, in Switzerland, was, in the thirteenth century, raised to the Imperial throne, it has been owing perhaps as much as to the Mosaic nature of the political structure and the "paternal" character of the government, allowing its people to move only in such a way as the ruling individual thought best for the general interests, his own included. The manifold marriages of the line of Hapsburg princes did much to extend the Empire, while it diversified its people, and the growing power of Austria resulted in the thirty years' war, by which all Europe sought to curb the progress of that State, and which ended in the treaty of Westphalia in 1648, securing the freedom of the Protestant religion and the independence of the German States. Fifty years later the Turks were finally expelled from Hungary, and that kingdom secured to the Empire. In 1740, the male line of the House of Hapsburg had failed in the death of Charles VI. Maria Therese, his daughter, married to Francis of Lorrain, succeeded to the crown. That princess was no sooner seated on the throne than Great Frederic of Prussia seized upon Silesia, and Maria Therese, by involving France in the seven years' war which followed, cost that country 200,000 men, $100,000,000, and large American possessions.

The continued intrigues of that powerful princess against France, ruled by the weak and degenerate successor of Louis XIV., were a leading cause of the French revolution, from whence sprung the avenging sword of Napoleon, that twice entered Vienna, and produced those financial evils

under which Austria groans to this day, and which, after forty years of peace, are yet a grand source of trouble. As Maria Therese duped the weak rulers of France to ruin themselves by supporting her cause against the supposed growing power of Prussia, so was Austria brought twice to the brink of destruction by the intrigues of the English government, which made her the tool in the attempt to sap the power of Napoleon. The losses of territory that Austria suffered during the French wars were subsequently adjusted at the Congress of Vienna. But the losses and devastation which her people suffered by the French have not yet been recovered from. The territorial adjustment, which was made by the Congress of Vienna in 1815, continued, with the exception of the seizure of Cracow by Austria, in contravention of the treaty of Vienna, until the revolt of 1848; a new territorial adjustment was then made. The division of the empire, with the number of the people, as given by Joseph Hain, in 1851, Secretary of the Ministry, was as follows:

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These give the extent of territory and number of the people according to the most recent figures, but in Austria, as in other countries of Europe, the population of late years has concentrated in the cities. Thus, Vienna, in 1838, had 326,250 souls, and in 1854, 431,889. The finances of Austria have never been published as freely as those of other States, and the expenditures never until very recently. But it follows that after the severe losses that country sustained in the early part of the present century, that they could not be very flourishing. The chief revenues may be stated in the following proportion-direct tax, 88,000,000 florins, of 484 cents each United States money; indirect taxes, 139,000,000 florins; mines, money, railroads, 10,000,000 florins; other items, 22,000,000 florins-total, 258,000,000 florins, of about $129,000,000; while the expenses are $150,000,000. The immense efforts made necessary by the consequence of the wars with France, from 1790 to 1816, had caused

great exhaustion. The revenue of paper money had failed through excess of issue, the country being filled with depreciated notes; voluntary contributions were called for; the silver of the churches taken; a currency of base metal issued; the export of the precious metals prohibited; a forced loan of 75,000,000 florins resorted to to reduce the quantity of paper outstanding; immense duties imposed on imports, under pretence that it was them which caused the difficulty; postage raised two or three times; property tax of one-half of 1 per cent levied, and, as a last resort, the promise of the Emperor violated by the issue of more bank notes. The amount of these now outstanding had reached 1,060,000,000 florins, say $500,000,000. This paper was becoming valueless when, in 1811, Count Wallis became Finance Minister. He determined on a coup d'etat. He determined that new quittances should be issued, by which one florin of this new paper should discharge five florins due in old paper, in all public and private transactions. These orders were printed with the most profound secrecy, and sent, sealed, to all the public functions throughout the Empire, to be opened only at 10 o'clock, A. M., March 15th, 1811. Thus, all debts throughout the Empire were cut down 80 per cent with the stroke of a pen. In 1813, the war compelled new issues, and when Count Stadion succeeded Count Wallis he repeated the measure in the proportion of 20 to 8. That is to say, the property of all miners, institutions, and capitalists was cut down from 100 to 20 by Wallis, and from 20 to 8 by Stadion. The peace found that country exhausted, and it was compelled to borrow 38,000,000 florins from Rothschild and 60,000,000 florins from others, raising the debt to 630,000,000 florins in 1816. There was a large amount of debt paid off by the operation of the sinking fund and drawn by lottery down to 1846; but inasmuch as that there was always a large deficit in the revenues, caused mostly by the absurd commercial policy of the government, the new loans were continually necessary, and the state of the debt is now as follows, in "convention" florins :

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merce.

This enormous debt has swollen up mostly by reason of the insane persistence of the government in its prohibitive system in respect of comThe national loan of July 20, 1854, was raised by subscription, as was pretended, mostly to bring the paper money within a reasonable limit. It was raised with much facility, under the existence of speculation then rampant. The wants of the State have arisen mostly to provide for its large military establishment, and the revenues and expenses have been as follows:

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This enormous deficit is covered by continual borrowing, as we have seen, while the business of nearly 40,000,000 of people languishes under the oppression of the restrictive policy, which began with Maria Therese, and which, by destroying traffic, not only prevents the raising of indirect. taxes, but the ability to pay direct taxes. This system, like Dr. Sangrados' bleeding and hot water, the less it cures the more obstinately it is persisted in.

Depreciated money has been one great evil but growing out of the same system. There have been two depreciated currencies in Austria, the metallic and paper; both these are now undergoing reforms. In relation to the metallic there are now three classes current in Austria, a fourth class ceased to be current in 1800. At the close of the last century Francis II, Emperor of Austria, was also titular Emperor of Germany, and his dominions comprised Austria, the kingdom of Hungary, Duchy of Lombardy, and the low countries, or Belgium. For each of these countries there was a distinct coinage. Belgium was then detached from German rule, and that coinage ceased. The conquests of Napoleon in Lombardy also stopped that coinage. In 1806, the old German empire was dissolved, and the legends on Austrian coins were changed. In 1815, Lombardy and Venice were restored to Austria, and there remained then three coinages of Austria, Hungary, and Lombardy. The first are in gold, the single, double, and quadruple ducat, coined, according to the rate of 1559, and in use in Germany; that is, 67 ducats from a Cologne mark, 3,607.5 grains troy weight, 23 carats fine, or, according to the United States Mint terms, the ducat is 53.87 troy grains, .986 fine. The value is 4 florins, and has the commercial mark. The silver coins-1st, rix dollar; 2d, florin, or half a rix dollar, and is the principle money of account, divided into 60 kreutzers; 3d, Zwanziger, or piece of twenty kreutzers, one-third of a florin; 4th, the Zehner, or ten kreutzers; 5th, the piece of five kreutzers, and 6th, the piece of three kreutzers. The coins of Hungary are the same, with the exception of the device. The Lombardy coinage began in 1819. The value of the coins is as follows:

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