Cotillion

“ As many persons, however, express alarm at having no basis to our currency of intrinsic value, but the funds of the Bank, (which are not all convertible into cash on demand) and Government securities, (which are in the same situation) though both ultimately adequate to all outstanding issues of Bank Notes, some new arrangement might be made, which would present a metallic basis of intrinsic value, payable on demand, but at the same time would leave the currency governed, as to its quantity, by the real wants of the community, and not by the forced par of the Mint and Market price of Gold. ”

“ It is plain, that to form our whole circulation exclusively of the precious metals, is impossible, and that some system, not of mere intrinsic value, but of confidence, is to be resorted to.
It is plain, that to circumscribe a circulation by this identity of price between Bullion, Coin, and Bank Notes, is absurd; since there can be no connexion between things limited and things unlimited in value. The principle has no analogy to a currency. ”

“ He is equally sensible of the folly of those arguers, who conceive that the Mint price and market price of gold must always be the same; because gold in coin and gold in bullion are of the same value and the same quality, and gold of any given alloy is always equal to the same quantity of gold of the same alloy.
Surely it might strike these arguers that such reasonings upon the sameness of the value of gold are mere identical propositions: the same is the same: equals are equals: a quantity of gold of any given purity is equal to the same quantity of the same purity. ”

“ Scott's professional life, stand as the most imposing of his many public services. I refer to his advocacy of sound money as against recurrent attempts to inflate the currency of the country by issues of "fiat" paper and to debase the monetary standard by giving, or attempting to give, to silver an arbitrary parity with the world's standard of value, gold. Careful study of history had impressed upon Mr. Scott's mind the vital importance of a sound and stable currency. ”

“ He knew how many spindles and looms he had; how much could be done with a pound of cotton, how much it cost, and how much each spindle and loom would do. He said to a capitalist, "I know all about cotton spinning and weaving, and do not know anything about this thing called money, but I want $10,000 of it." Said he, "My cloth is worth 10 cents a yard; it sells at that rate in unlimited quantities by wholesale; nobody can make it any cheaper; but I am not working a gold mine; I am not manufacturing legal-tender paper money, and the only way I can get money is to swap my cotton cloth for it. ”

“ In obedience to those who believed with the market women of Paris, as stated in their famous petition, that "laws should be passed making paper money as good as gold," Couthon, in August, 1793, had proposed and carried a law punishing any person who should sell assignats at less than their nominal value with imprisonment for twenty years in chains, and later carried a law making investments in foreign countries by Frenchmen punishable with death. ”

“ It must always be considered, that the levy of a great additional amount, or a sudden great increase of expenditure, does not at once effect an increase of capital. The new additional permanent capital which is made on these levies and expenditure, follows gradually till the ultimate profit upon them becomes a fixed solid increase of capital.—Let Government spend 50 additional millions in a year: these 50 millions are taken from the existing capital, and the advance of such a sum will also require additional currency ”

“ The Corporation’s vast capitalization, a billion and a half of dollars, its yearly turnover exceeding its capital, its payroll of 275,000 workers, or, with their families, enough to populate a large city, its productive capacity of more than 16,000,000 tons of finished steel annually—to say nothing of other products—the volume of freight carried in its fleet of ore boats, several times the tonnage passing through the Suez Canal, its foreign trade of two hundred million dollars—these alone might make the Corporation’s history worth the telling. ”

“ If this reasoning is plainly unanswerable, when we are thinking of a measure or rule, for the amount of a currency, we must turn our thoughts to the income of a country in its most extended sense,—and as we must admit that currency ought to be augmented proportionably with income, whatever be the amount of debts and taxes and levies, we must also admit that a greater currency is necessary now than in 1809 or 1810, or in any other year, if our income on the whole is greater. ”

“ There is none so poor, who has two stout arms and a pickaxe left, but he can empty any store in Monterey. Nor has the first instance yet occurred, in which the creditor has suffered. All distinctions indicative of means have vanished; the only capital required is muscle and an honest purpose. I met a man to-day from the mines in patched buckskins, rough as a badger from his hole, who had fifteen thousand dollars in yellow dust, swung at his back. Talk to him of brooches, gold-headed canes, and Carpenter’s coats! Why he can unpack a lump of gold that would throw all Chesnut-street into spasms. ”

“ Nature and the eternal proportions of things are above all kings and all human laws. James III. of Scotland coined copper money, and one of the reasons assigned in the Act ordaining this coinage, is that it is "for almons' deid to be done to pure folk," that is, people thought the smallest coin in use was too much to give in alms—they must have something of less value for that purpose. He also coined a still inferior money called black money, the small tinge of silver mixed with the copper giving it that colour. ”

“ If rich gold deposits had been discovered in Bursley Municipal Park, Cotterill would have owned a mining camp and amassed immense wealth; but unfortunately gold deposits were not discovered in the Park. Nobody knew his position; nobody ever does know the position of a speculative builder. ”

“ Now, I am going to touch a tender subject—cotton manufacturing.... I have never taken the ground that there were any climatic difficulties in many parts of the South. The real difficulty is that the margin of profit is very small on a very large capital, and unless you can work, in the long run, on a very small margin you cannot succeed. These times are no criterion.... May I say that the true preparation for success in cotton manufacturing must be in knowing how to save the fraction of a cent.... You cannot spin cotton when you do not know the difference between a cent and a nickel. ”

“ As the law fixed 3711⁄4 grains of pure silver as a unit, the quantity of gold in a gold dollar would be regulated by the ratio fixed from time to time.
"Now," addressing Mr. Scott, "if I have not read your law right, I want you to say so. This is the place to settle all questions of fact. Your law does not say a gold piece has so many units in it, but instead of that, it does say, the gold pieces are to be of the value of so many units." ”

“ To-day United States Steel common stock sells in the market at an investment yield lower than most, if not all, other industrial and railroad securities, a yield, in fact, that compares not unfavorably with that on securities of the Government of the United States itself.
Nor is the reason far to seek. As the Corporation has earned and enjoys the confidence of its competitors, customers, and most of its workers, so it has earned the confidence of the great mass of the investing public which regards it,236 not without justification, as the principal bulwark of the country’s business. ”

“ Finally, we come to the Corporation’s relations with stockholders, its financial policy. For twenty years the big company has been steadily building up its assets with a view to making its common stock the safest investment of its kind in the world. It is not too much to say that it has now attained that eminence, and if its stockholders in the past have not always shared in profits as liberally as they may have considered their due, there is no question that their loss in the past has been much more than made up for by the security which the future promises. ”

“ In Russia the Three Copee Piece is very nearly of the weight of six English halfpence, yet its current value is only a small fraction above one penny sterling;—and thus by issuing no copper coin where the denominative is not in proportion to the intrinsic value, every class of dealers who vend the necessaries of life are shielded against loss; and every-210- unnatural rise in the price of provisions for the subsistence of the poor is of course prevented. ”

“ When the subject of raising more working capital came up after the organization of the big company it was he who suggested the scheme by which the cost of securing the new capital needed would be paid back in a few years by savings in interest charges, one which would also eventually reduce the Corporation’s fixed charges materially. He believed that the Corporation should build for the future and that it was a matter of small moment if the immediate cost of a course of action was high if the ultimate results were toward economy. ”

“ If the landlord at any time exerted his full legal rights, the cottier would not be able even to live. If by extra exertion he doubled the produce of his bit of land, or if he prudently abstained from producing mouths to eat it up, his only gain would be to have more left to pay to his landlord; while, if he had twenty children, they would still be fed first, and the landlord could only take what was left. Almost alone amongst mankind the cottier is in this condition, that he can scarcely be either better or worse off by any act of his own. ”

“ This saving in interest on preferred dividend charges is equal to a little over a dollar a share on the common stock, which has remained at the same figure throughout the twenty years of the Corporation’s existence.
240 In discussing the investment value of Steel common, it is necessary to lay considerable emphasis on the actual tangible assets, at cost, behind the stock. Tangible investment is of particular importance because earning power is based largely on it, and on earning power depend dividends. ”

“ The price of Coin may be fixed by a Mint Indenture, and confined to home circulation, as the price of tine silver may be fixed by the Hamburgh Bank, so long as it remains in the Bank. But when coin by melting becomes bullion, or when bank silver is taken from the Bank of Hamburgh, and gets into the market, they become subject equally to the variations of the market, and follow the course of demand, and rise and fall in price accordingly. ”

“ Just go down and put up some collateral. That's all that will save you—they've got the law behind them and they're strictly within their rights. No, now listen! You borrowed a half a million dollars at the bank this morning and put up your Navajoa for collateral. It was worth twenty-four then, but now, by my ticker, it's only five and a half. Can't you see where you are? Stoddard caught you napping and he'll never let up till you're broke. You valued it at thirty, but he'll keep the market down to nothing until you settle up and liquidate those claims. ”

“ Although the average wage in 1914 was some four dollars less than in 1913, the average day wage to the worker, exclusive of the administrative and selling cost, was $2.88, compared with $2.85 the previous year. This is significant as indicating the policy of the Corporation to equalize as much as possible the amounts paid to different classes of workers. In instituting advances, it has always been the lowest classes of labor that have benefited most. The workers themselves have testified to satisfaction with this policy and their recognition of its essential justice. ”

“ But in the case of United States Steel this usually unfavorable factor is really a tower of strength. It is, in fact, deliberate. It is part and parcel of the Corporation’s policy of giving the wage earner as large a share as possible in the proceeds of operations. And it has been possible to increase the worker’s share of gross sales in recent years without injustice to stockholders only because of the ploughing back of profits of previous years into new plants, increasing the investment, and enlarging capacity. ”

“ Where the amount of rent is not limited, either by law or custom, a cottier system has the disadvantages of the worst metayer system, with scarcely any of the advantages by which, in the best forms of that tenure, they are compensated. It is scarcely possible that cottier agriculture should be other than miserable. There is not the same necessity that the condition of the cultivators should be so. Since by a sufficient restraint on population competition for land could be kept down, and extreme poverty prevented ”

“ To be perfectly frank, the prospect of millions of profit counted for less in my calculations than the honor and prestige I foresaw in the success of my copper structure. As proof of this, witness how I voluntarily gave back the millions I had secured, to make good. To create a great institution, to erect a new and absolutely staple investment, and in doing so to make millions for one's partners, one's self, and the public, would be to live not in vain. The knowledge of my attitude will perhaps help my readers to comprehend the enthusiasm with which I entered into my "Copper" crusade ”

“ I learnt also that the average pay of the labour employed in the works was about one pound sterling daily per man. The profit upon the £4,000,000 capital of the concern is such that its one-pound shares were quoted in the Sydney Stock Exchange the day the Prince went over the works at sixty-four shillings apiece.
After seeing the steel-works, the Prince was conducted by Mr. MacDougall over a neighbouring wire and nail factory, which claims to be now filling the entire demand of Australia for plain-wire fencing. ”