Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1853-1862, 1856-11-20
SILVER In EUROPE.

To Judge from the reports which at present
reach US from Europe, one might suppose that the
| mercantile world was there involved in crisis
which would only clear away with the result of
| making silver and gold charge places. Silver is
no longer regarded on the continent of Europe as
material for small change; it is being treated in
the East as the main portion of the circulating
medium-its scarcity alone has enhanced the de-
msnd. Apart from political excitements in France
and the panic prevailing in all parts of the Cont
nent especially in Berlin, there is separate cause
of trouble in the great scarcity of silver which
scarcity alone seems to have the effect of unduly
increasing the popular estimate of its practical
value.
Thus in Paris, where the bank daily pays out
1000 francs, in five franc gold pieces, and
where silver is rapidly disappearing, the multitude
are beginning to fear gold they once in by. gone
days feared assignsts. One of the causes of this
scarcity of silver is well known. The revelation
of the Chairman of the East India Company
shows that in Is years from 1886 to 1854 not less
than forty three millions of pounds sterling of
European silver were changed in the minis Of
Calcutta, Madras and Bombay, to rupees, and
were absorbed in East India traffic So great has
however, been the increase very recently, that
during the first nine months of the present year.
8758,000 pounds in silver were sent from Eng
land to the East, while during the last quarter of
q year alone, this export amounted to 1924, 900
pounds silver.
East India, China, and Russia-all hard money
countries-sre the three great sponges which at
present suck up the worlds silver. But the Ger
man correspondent of the New York Abendzeitunq
speaks of another cause of the scarcity of silver
which has not hitherto excited much attention.
This is the incredible extent to which silver is
boarded up without regard to interest, by the ag-
lcultural population of Germany. Poor as this
class may be, they are by no means 80 very poor
as they are popularity represen ted to be in England
and this country; while very great proportion OF
those at all elevated above downright poverty,
or living from hand to mouth, invariably save
something But of late years, what, between the
rise in prices and good crops, the German peas
ants holding on with grim tenscity to the pro-
ceeds, have accumulated large sums all in silver
For, as the correspondent in question remarks,
our peasants fear both gold and paper money,
exchanging them Rs soon as possible for silver,
and fill their chests with solid five franc pieces and
crown-dollars, which seldom leave them unless to
purchase from a neighboring farmer an adjacent
piece of land.
1t is very possible that this greed for silver may
be far from important cause of the scarcity-ad-
ded to the far greater drain of the East. Those
familiar with the European pessantry know that
with them, as with cur Indians, an anpsthy often
becomes very deeply and extensively grounded,
with apparently little reason That the sudden
increase in the quantity of gold should produce
among them a fear that it might become q source
of loss, is though not reasonable, at least natural,
especially when we remember that symptoms to
this effect have once or twice shown themselves
on trifing scale in our more intelligent commu-
nifty. A community, however, which looks upon
the precious metals as a medium for investment,
or promoting exchanges, and lives rather in the
spirit of active business than of old time boarding
will hardly be likely to stow away silver in that
popularity adjusted receptscle-the old stocking
philadelphia Bulletin.