Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-12-01
THTE sILvER QUESTION.
II. DemonetizatIpn in Europe.

IN the llOSl UcSpOtAC COuulIlSS VI
Europe the will of the people is too
sensibly felt for statesmen to legis-
late on momentOus topics without
public attention being directed to
the subject and public opinion APP
pealed to. 1t is only in the United
States that a complete revolution in
fiscal and monetary matters can be
effected so indirectly and clandes-
timely that the President himself
who signed the acts by which it was
done shall not know of it eight
months after the change had been
effected. A European sovereign
who had done what an American
administration effected in 1878 and
1874 would have lost his crown and
possibly his head. But we live in
free country-free, at least, for poll
ticians to work their own sweet |
will without thevulgar Intervention |
Unpopular assent. Decentralization,
then, in America was affected by a !
secret conspiracy, but, now we have |
tostudy the same process in Europe,
we shall at least see things done in
the light of day and the reasons
openly discussed.
Decentralization IN ENGLAND.
Till the year 1916 gold and silver
were all over the world equally the
standard of value, equally payable
and receivable by law in the liqui-
dation of debts, equally welcomed
in the minis of all Governments,
and coined there into lawful cur
rency. Since then different nations
have abolished one or the other of
these metals as lawful money and
adopted single standards, sometimes
of gold, sometimes of silver. Eng
land was the first to do this and, as
we have intimated, 1916 was the
year in which she did it. The year
before this the battle Of Waterloo
had closed a space of twenty years,
during which war had been on
vast scale the occupation of nations;
productive industry had been at
minimum, prices had been enOr-
mOusly high and even at these pri-
ces very little business was done.
The fail of prices which necessarily
attended upon the increase in the
productive labor of nations had pro-
duced great commercial derange-
ment and many failures had taken
place.
Lord Liverpool was ut this time
first Lord of the Treasury and Prime
Minister. He was never considered
a man of genius. Some years be-
fore, his father had written a paper
on the evils of the double standard,
and, acting upon the principle of
hereditary legislative capacity, he
abolished the mOnetic character of
silver and made gold the standard
for the payment of debts.
RESUMPTION IN ENGLAND.
Suspension of specie payments
then existed as it has here since the
war of 1861 to 1865. 1t was not till
resumption of specie payments was
announced and attempted that the
disastrous consequences Of that
measure became fully manifest.
Then ensued a stOppage of business
and failure of business men, high
prices and low wages, trade riots, /
strikes and disturbances among farm |
labOrers; in short, exactly the same |
state of things which inexperienced
in this country not many months /
agO-like effects from like causes
a dangerous contraction of the cir (
culation arising from the attempt at 1
resumption in one metal when both (
would have been insufficient. The |
attempt to resume in 1919 had to be
precipitately abandoned, as John
Sherman's sixty years later will if
the bill just passed in the House re-
pealing the Resumption Act meets
with q check in the Senate or at the /
White House; abandoned after pro-
ducing untold ruin and suffering in
all classes.
For many years England alone
held to the gold standard, all other
nations adhering to the double
standard. England retained her
single standard at the cost of fire.
entpanics and monetary derange-
ments. At last revolutions in the
monetary system of the world were
occasioned by the alarming rumor
that
GOLD WAS AT 4 DISCOUNT.
The gold mines in California were
opened in 1913, those in Australia
in 1854. The maximum yield Of
gold was in 1886. Not only were
these new gold fields the richest and
most extensive ever discovered, but
they were in healthy regions of
country, and they were worked by
England and America, the two
most energetic nations in the world,
most practised in applying scientific
principles and mechanical ingenuity
10 industrial pursuits.
Scientific men alarmed the gov
ernments of Europe and the COM
mercial world by predicting a great
fall in the value of gold, ana, co nse-
quent upon this, a loss of purchas-
ing value, a rise in the prices of
everything which gold purchases.
1t was also apprehended that the
creditor class, in whose behalf all
legislation is directed in Europe,
would lose by being paid in depre-
ciated currency. The situation APP
pretended was in one respect the
reverse Of the present; then it was
feared that gold would be at a dis
count in relation to silver, now silver
is below par in relation to gold. Ger {