e
issue of scrip, though actually a costly method of taxation, seems to the
unthinking a way of making something out of nothing. The certain effect is
to extend the period of doubt. Laws affecting the coinage and character of
legal tender, since they disturb the relation of borrower and lender
indefinitely, postpone readjustment of confidence. Changes in the tariff
laws are liable to have the same effect because of uncertainty as to where
the influence will be most felt. Special legislation with reference to
contracts for labor, however well intended, are sure to hinder adjustment,
and all agitation in favor of new experiments in government enterprises or
in legislation as to property makes less available the capital and
ingenuity of the people.

_Cure for hard times._--The only genuine cure involves a restoration of
faith in enterprise. It is almost as hard to establish after a commercial
panic as after a panic in an army. The remedies best worth study are
really preventives, in the form of checks upon undue expansion of credits
and distinct limits as to extension of time. Some have gone so far as to
wish there were no laws for collection of debts, since this would actually
prevent the great bulk of indebtedness; but it would also destroy the
essential foundation of daily credit, one of the most productive machines
of exchange. The best that can be done is to make more explicit the laws
against frauds, and to limit easily transferred forms of credit to those
whose foundation can be carefully inspected. It is very desirable that all
corporations dealing in credit should be subject to the strictest
examination by a public officer.

_Short credits vs. hard times._--More important than legal enactments are
the business habits of a community, and these can be cultivated by
business men. Farmers, of all classes of people, can foster such customs
of careful inspection of business standing and frequent settlement of
accounts and careful loaning as will make a panic less possible. They
need, however, a wider acquaintance with the machinery of business and a
firmer faith in the advantage to all concerned of cash payments and
absolute promptness in all settlements. The moral power of such a body,
amounting to one-half the population, most of whom are solid owners of
property, would, if well informed and united in principle, check most of
the extravagances in expenditure and investment which waste the capital of
the country.

_