The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1878-01-28
THE CURRENCY QUESTION,

addressed the United States Senate on the
| subject Of the Matthews resolutions which
| affirm the right of the government to pay It's
| bonds in silver. We know from our exchanges
that the people of Georgia are almost unan-
imously in favor of the demonstration of sill
yer and the repeal Of the resumption act
| though to a person not acquainted with Sen
ator Hills peculiar constitution Of mind that
gentlemans opposition to these measures
which are supported by his colleague, would
seem to evidence an almost equal division Of
sentiment in the State on the subject. Mr.
| Hill S utterances on Friday In opposition othe
Matthews resolutions show that. instead Of
taking counsel with his constituents whose
material interests are ut stake, and seek
ing information from sources not faint
ed with selfish greed. he has been
hardening to the interested appeals Of the
| organs Of the Eastern money rings. and ac-
ceptng their bald fallacies as the gospel OF
| financial truth. His position is. that before
silver is remonetzed it should be made equal
TO gold by increasing its weight, and by lin
| iting its coinage and legal tender quality He
means by the first proposition that the silver
dollars, instead of containing 4l2L, grains, as
provided in the Bland bill, shall be made TO
contain 400 grains, or more. This proposition,
by dnt of constant repetition by the advocates
Of a single (goltO standard. and not on ac-
count of any intrinsic force-non nj aed
suepe cddendo-has come to be accepted
as sound by great many people who
will not take the trouble to study the facts
bearing upon 1t and exercise their reasoning
faculties, The plain answer TO it is this In
1879 when the old silver dollar-"the dollar of
the daddies" containing 1925 grains, was
demonetized, it commanded a premium in the
bullion market of 81, per cent. over gold. This
indicated simply a stronger demand for silver
than for gold for coinage and industrial pur-
poses. But when the old unit of value. the
silver dollar, was demonetized and the sill
yer demand for coinage purposes restricted
to the subsidiary currency, and when be-
sides, Germany also denonetized silver
and threw upon the bullion market its
supply of about $40 900, 900, the natural con-
sequence was a very considerable decline in
the market value Of silver. This is but another
illustration of the immutable law of suppl and
demand. AS we have stated the old dollar of
4121a grains commanded in 1873 premium Of
ga per cent; Of late it has been worth only
about 80 or 81 cents in gold. On the other
hand, our subsidiary silver coinage, contain
ing about 1856 grains to the dollar, or 27i3
grains less than the dollar of the
daddies," is worth about 9G cents-almost
rs much as the trade dollar which
contains 400 grains Why is it that the sub
sidiary coins and the trade dollar, between
which there Is difference Of about thirty five
grains of silver should be about equal in
market value? Simply because their legal ten
der quality is about the same, and because the
demand for the one in the United States Is
about equal to the demand for the other for
purposes of trade with Asiatic countries. The
intrinsic value of the coin is but one of the
elements that control its market value.
SO that If the demand for any article is de-
stroyed whatever its intrinsic value may be-
its price will correspondingly decrease. But
the converse of this proposition is equally
true, and it ought to be clear to the feeblest
intellect that if we remonetize the silver dol
lar of 412112 grains, and, by making it legal
tender, enlarge indefinitely the demand for it,
but short time will elapse before it attains
its former market value. or, Fat least. reaches
the parity with. gold 1t is ridiculous to talk of
limiting the coinage or the legal tender
quality of metals like gold ard silver. which
represent an amount of labor nearly equal in
value to the sums for which fhey are made
legal tender To say that a country can have
too much gold Or silver is as absurd as it
would be to say that it can possess too
much of any other kind of wealth
The reasons assigned by Senator Hill for
his opposition to the silver bill are merely the
echo of the insincere and cunning arguments
used by those whose interests lie in the reten-
ton of the single gold standard. They derive
no additional force from their employment by
Senator Hill, and we have combatted them at
some length only because we regret to see
Southern Senator yielding to the clamor Of
the money-power of the East and falling into
the trap cunningly set for him. But, while
Mr.. Hill does not reflect the views of his con-
stituents, Gen. Gordon is regarded as a high
minded statesman and sincere friend Of the
people, and we attach much more importance
to his utterances than to those of his crotchety
and cratic colleague
Senator Gordon is reported to have said
that che feared the country was being led
to expect too much from the reconciliation of
silver. He cautioned the people of the oolln-
try against such expectations, because they
would be disappointed"
We venture to suggest to the Senator that
the people, who are the real instigators of this
financial movement, which seems to be play
ing sad havoc with party lines and disci-
pline at the North, know perfectly well
what they are about, and need not
be cautioned against entertaining ex-
peotations impossible Of realization. They
are aware that the mere rehabilitation
of the silver dollar is far from being a
panacea for all their financial troubles. The
demonstration of silver is but a parto a COM
prehensive scheme of reform in national legis-
lation on financial matters. When that
measure is carried through it is proposed to
repeal the resumption act OF 1875 and to put a
stop to Secretary Sherman's farcical and
ruinous attempt to redeem, on the first Of
January, 1879, some S700, 100000 of greenbacks