The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1876-01-22
AMERICAN SILVER.
IT'S ENORMOUS PRODUCTION - WHAT
SHALL BE DONE WITH IT!

IT'S ENORMOUS PRODUCTION - WHAT
SHALL BE DONE WITH IT?
Speaking of the denomination OF
silver in Europe, "a Washington letter
of December 80, in the New York Bull
letin, concludes as follows:
The bearing of these facts upon the
silver mining interest of this country is
manifest, and begins to take definite
form in the action of capitalists on the
Pacific coast. 1t is fact that num-
Der of gentlemen from the Pacific
coast. some of whom have arrived,
actually propose and expect to carry
through congress, at this session, a
provision making silver coins an un-
limited legal tender in payment of all
debts.
Only yesterday there was dispatch
from San Francisco to the effect that,
by some mysterious new process Of
smelling, the business of Swansea and
other ore smelling cities of the world
was to be wiped out. The story of this
inventor gains friends, as did the emo
tor" for Keely, nobody knowing any
thing about it, but all the miners say
ing "he's got it."
The silver mines in Nevada have
ore enough in sight to keep all the
miners that can work busy years, and
with the appliances they have dis
covered for getting it out, and the
amount they are certain to put on the
market for years to come, comes with
the owners of the mines great anxiety
as to what they will do with it. They
do not propose to make silver plated
come down to near the value Of plated
ware, nor to sacrifice their bonanzas
through over production that might
bring reduction of price by any reason
connected with the law of supply and
demand.
They are shrewd men who see the
mints., of Europe closing one by one
against silver coinage. They see in the
Imperial demand that caused the pass
age through one German house Of
parliament, as above mentioned, the
bill that threatens any day the demoniti-
zation of the thaler. They see the
threat of the Latin states, thrown out
by the announcement of the Brussels
Convention. And they see our minis
turning out silver pieces as fast as the
machinery will do it, in order that the
silver clause Of the Resumption act of
1875 may be carried into effect. And
we are to have another mint i'll the
Mississippi Valley. We are sending
trade dollars to Asia, and they like
them so much that we can not coin
them fast enough. There is to be a
proposition made soon in congress to
make trade half and quarter dollar of
silver, and it will be likely to carry.
So our minis will have all the work
they can do to coin silver for years to
come. Their entire hope is, therefore,
in the United States. They are pro-
ducing silver ton after ton, and they
want it used.
Now the currency we have in this
country is the bone of contention as
strongly as the negro was in 1858.
They talk here of repeating the legal
tender act, funding the greenbacks, and
doing all sorts of radical things in the
direction of specie payments. There
are probably ten earnestly and strong
ly urged propositions looking that way.
And then the resumption act stands
forward, possessing an imperative place
in the statute books, to guide and di-
rect executive movements.
The issue, therefore, lies between
the Government and the miner Of the
Pacific. So long as the Resumption
Act says the secretary Of the treasury
shall accumulate silver and gold, SO
long will he be authorized and disposed
to accumulate it. But neither the
president nor the secretary of the
treasury believe in making silver coins
a legal tender for more than SO.
That proposition will be apt to be
made law at this session. There are a
good many little amendments of law,
of great moment, to be made by con-
gress, touching our financial system,
and they will be made within three
months, or the secretary will distress
the country by accommodating silver and
gold under the authority he las.
The Pacific Coast people, having sill
yer to sell, and viewing with dismay
its present and worse prospective de-
basement and denomination, are de-
termined to make the United States and
Asia and Mexico take it and use it as
the metal for standard coinage. The
government officers look upon its de-
monitization as an evidence of pros
pective profit in the proposed supplant-
ing of fractional currency by it. DIR.
Linderman, director of the mint, and
the secretary of the treasury, are es-
pecially pleased with the prospect of
buying silver cheap for silver resump-
ton. But the Pacific coast people say
they have the silver, that the govern
ment wants it, and that it can be easily
put in the place of both gold and paper
if congress provides minis to coin it
fast enough, and permits its use as an
unlimited legal tender or effective
money at the customhouse and in pay
ment of debts. They say they do not
use greenbacks except at discount,
and that they will furnish material for
coin as fast as the minis can coin it, go
that hard silver money may soon be-
come fact.
Chalk Marks