Mr. Chairman, in the 1st place, I wish to remark to the gentleman, who i. so kindly indorsed most of the opinions exPressed in my recent, remarks on financial topics, that he has, I think, slightly misapprehended my position. I. did not argue as an abstract proposition that the resources of the country and the integrity of the Government should be the basis of our currency. I was considering the question of our duty under existing conditions, and did but assert that we had in the season of our extremity adopteeo the resources of the country and the integrity of the Government as its basis, and expanded our currency to meet the exigencies which would have destroyed us had we adhered to a specie basis; but I maintained that, having due reference to the ultimate restoration of our currency to its international character, we should adhere to the basis I indicated and reduce its volume, if we should determine to reduce it at all, so slowly and with such excellent judgment as not to embarrass and impair the internal industry and production of the country. I do not see how, by adopting gold as the basis of our currency, we can give to a dollar a more fixed and unchanging value than our greenback dollars have. They are the given portion of a fixed amount of currency; and if Congress will, regardless of recommendation or importunity, refuse to indulge in experiments of expansion or contraction, but maintain the existing volume of paper currency, each dollar will continue to be the same proportionate part of the same amount of currency applicable to the business of the country. You may, by law, determine the weight, the diam eter, the thickness, and the quality of the metal of a dollar, but you cannot fix its value. The price of wheat is now very high. The last crop was short, and a barrel of flour will buy many dollars. Next year, if by the blessing of the early and the later rains there shall come an abundant crop, a barrel of flour of like quality will not buy half so many dollars. The value of a dollar is equally regulated by the law of supply and demand, whether it be paper or.whether it rePresent one basis or the Other.