The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1879-05-08
Silver in England.

President of the Liverpool Chamber OF
Commerce, discusses the matter in q let
ter to the Manchester Guardian. The
nature OF the argument is that the de-
cline in silver has been caused by the
restriction of its use its value can be re-
stored to It's old ratio with gold. He
says:
Silver was produced far moro largely
than gold in the early part of this con
tury-the best authorities say three
times as much Then came the extraord-
mary gold discoveries of Australia and
California, which increased the yield OF
gold five-fold, and for several years af-
terward gold was produced to three-fold
the value of silyer-that is to say the
ratio of production between gold and sill
yer has varied ninefold since the be-
ginning of the century. If that had
happened between the two competing ar
ticles of trade we know that the relative
value would have varied enormously
1t actually did happen between cotton
and wool during the American civil war,
and the price of cotton, which used to be
less than that of wool, became actually
higher But what happened in the case
of precious metals Their relative value
remained identically the same. The
quotation of silver in the London mar
ket stood God to Cid per ounce, with
trihing oscillations depending upon the
demand for shipment TO the East. In
other words, the ratio of to l5ll re-
manned for seventy-fve years practically
the exchangeable value of the two met
ais.
For all practical purposes gold and sill
yer kept fixed ratio of value of each
other till 1875, for the sole reason that
France was bi-metalic, and thereby the
whole world, and England more than
any, enjoyed the advantages of bi-met-
alism. it is true that the people of this
country did not know the reason of it.
They supposed that the intrinsic or
natural" value of silver as compared
with gold was about IS per ounce.
1t never occurred to them that it was
owing to an artificial" or Legislative"
arrangement by France, and latterly
| by the combination of States called the
Latin Union. We were like an ignor-
ant man, who never had indigestion, and
did not know he had stomach, but,
after severe fit of dyspepsia and CON
sulting a doctor, found he had delicate
apparatus for digesting food which
could easily be put wrong. SO we have
discovered in regard to silver. The
closing of the French minis to silver
has snapped tho tie which bound gold
and silver together, and there is no
longer in the world regulating power.
Precisely the same thing would have
happened if in 1S4S-50 France had de-
monetized gold or refused any longer to
allow it to be coined as full legal tender.
Surely, if the bi-metallic machinery
of France tided the world through the
crisis caused by the vast increase in the
production of gold, much more will the
adoption of bi-metalism by England,
J France and the United States, as we
propose, tide us through period of large
silver production.
He illustrates his views by the follow
ing comparison
Gold and silver may be compared to
two lakes-one fed by a golden, the
other by silver stream. The supply
pouring into each lake varies very much
from age to age, hence it might be ex-
pected that the level of the two lakes
would vary accordingly. But an extraor-
binary equality of level having been no
ticed for many years scientific investi-
| ga.ion was made, and an underground
pipe was discovered which connected the
lakes and caused their waters to rise and
fall simultaneously. The pipe was the
bi-metalic system of France. But the
pipe became choked, and food occurred
in the silver stream which made the
lake rise above its ordinary level while
a drouth on the other side caused the
golden lake to shrink far below its
former level The stoppage of the pipe
was the closing Of the French mint to
silver, aud till that block is removed the
lakes Will rise and fall without reference
to each Other, and the sage economists will
tell us that their natural or intrinsic
level must be determined by the volume
pouring into each, and that no artificial