During the same period there has been a much larger comparative contraction of the currency.  The population of the country has largely increased.  More than 25,000 miles of railroad have been built, requiring the active use of capital to operate them.  Millions of acres of land have been opened to cultivation, requiring capital to move the products.  Manufactories have multiplied beyond all precedent in the same period of time, requiring capital weekly for the payment of wages and for the purchase of material; and probably the largest of all comparative contraction arises from the organizing of free labor in the South.  Now every laborer there receives his wages, and, for want of savings banks, the greater part of such wages is carried in the pocket or hoarded until required for use.

These suggestions are thrown out for your consideration, without any recommendation that they shall be adopted literally, but hoping that the best method may be arrived at to secure such an elasticity of the currency as will keep employed all the industries of the country and prevent such an inflation as will put off indefinitely the resumption of specie payments, an object so devoutly to be wished for by all, and by none more earnestly than the class of people most directly interested—­those who “earn their bread by the sweat of their brow.”  The decisions of Congress on this subject will have the hearty support of the Executive.

In previous messages I have called attention to the decline in American shipbuilding and recommended such legislation as would secure to us our proportion of the carrying trade.  Stimulated by high rates and abundance of freight, the progress for the last year in shipbuilding has been very satisfactory.  There has been an increase of about 3 per cent in the amount transported in American vessels over the amount of last year.  With the reduced cost of material which has taken place, it may reasonably be hoped that this progress will be maintained, and even increased.  However, as we pay about $80,000,000 per annum to foreign vessels for the transportation to a market of our surplus products, thus increasing the balance of trade against us to this amount, the subject is one worthy of your serious consideration.

“Cheap transportation” is a subject that has attracted the attention of both producers and consumers for the past few years, and has contributed to, if it has not been the direct cause of, the recent panic and stringency.

As Congress, at its last session, appointed a special committee to investigate this whole subject during the vacation and report at this session, I have nothing to recommend until their report is read.

There is one work, however, of a national character, in which the greater portion of the East and the West, the North and the South, are equally interested, to which I will invite your attention.