Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1867-09-17
Upward Tendency Of Prices.

those general business principles that
interest all classes Of our readers, we
commence with the question which
underlies all values and effects all oc>
equations. viz: "When will prices
rule low as they did before the WARP"
We answer, ''Never." When as a
nation we return to specie basis,
prices will doubtless be lower in the
main, but not as much lower as many
suppose.
lst. Because, when we reach that
point, more than 5000, 900, 600 ofspe
Gle that Is now held almost entirely
as an article of merchandise, will
then pass into circulation as money,
and ielp to keep up redundancy
and high prices.
I'd. Until our national debt is paid,
we must submit directly or Indirect
y to tax upon every manufactured
article we consume, whether of ne
cessity or luxury, and this tax being
added TO the ordinary cost of pros
ductlon, enhances the price. This
tax will diminish with the national
debt but will never disappear Till
that does. "But when we return to
the specie basis, and the national debt
is pad, shall we not then return to
the prices ruling before the war;" -
No; because gold and silver increase
in the world faster than the demands
of business, and just in that propor-
flOn 1tA nIIpH h n lnlInIGh hos
All understand that if the amount Of
paper money in circulation is doubled
other things remaining the same, the
purchasing power OF a paper dollar is
diminished by one half; that is, it
will take two dollars tosbuy what
one would buy before. But few stop
to consider that precisely the same
law applies to all currency, gold and
silver included. Gold and silver are
are used in commercial transactions
of standards OF value not because
they are absolutely fixed and un>
changing, for from the days OF Ophir
to Potosi, California and Australia,
they have been constantly fluctuating,
but because, whatever they may be
at the present day, they have IN past
ages been the least variable stand
ards, as we'll as the most convenient
ones, that the world could find. The
addition to the worlds stock Of gold
and silver during the first half of the
sixteenth century consequent upon
the discovery oil America had the eff
feet Of vastly enhancing prices of
commodities all over Europe.
In 1913 Bishop Latimer preached
sermon before King Edward VII,
in which he inveighs against the ex>
travagance and high prices Of the
times with as much zeal and as little
knowledge of the true cause as any
one could now display. From this
we learn that the rent of the farm
upon which he passed his boyhood
advanced in about fifty years from
a rental OF four pounds year to six.
teen. About the same period wheat
advanced from an average of eight
shillings ten pence per quarter to
thirty ~thrce shillings three pence
AS a quarter in eight bushels, the ad
-ance was equivalent to from % cts.
to 81 a bus hel in our money. Here
was in grain and rent an increase Of
fourfold, or 400 per cent, depending
so far as we can see, entirely upon the
increase of precious metals.
A Spanish author says that he who
had one hundred reals before the dis
covery of America was as rich as he
who had five hundred afterwards
SO the principle announced connect
ing specie redundancy with enhanced
prices is no new one in the worlds
history. The annual production Of
gold and silver was never 50 great as
since the discovery Of gold in Cali
fornia and is increasing from year to
year.
From Jan. /, 1913 to Jan. l, 1866,
a period of eighteen years, there was
added to the worlds stock Of gold
and silver as follows:
Annual average increase.
Gold. So 34l ,50o,o 600 $ls5,63S,S8S
Silyer............. go, 100000 90,022,222