Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-05-13
A SILVER SECRET.

When a business man finds that any par
ticular article in which he deals is accumu-
lating on his hands because his customers
demand for it has slackened, he stops pro-
ducing or purchasing the neglected material
until renewed demand shall require fresh
supply. So clear is the propriety of proper
tioning demand to supply, that even the
rudest communities recognize its force. The
Indian by the far northwestern lakes will
cease to catch fish that he can neither eat nor
sell. The "cute Yankee nation" however,
outrage good sense and violate the clesrest
rules of commerce by perpetrating the enor-
NOUS blunder of filling its national store
with goods that are not called for, and add
ing every month to stocks that no demand
diminishes. Neither in the shape of dollars
nor certificates does a satiated peo-
pie call for more silver dollars, yet
month by month, the smart" American. adds
two million dollars more to the heap. Why?
If the reader will pause and reflect he will
fud it impossible to give reason why more
silver dollars should be made until they are
required by the business needs OF the coun-
try. A committee of Congress that has been
examining the matter have no hesitation in
recommending that the minting of silver
dollars shall cease until, the present stock
being worked of, increasing commerce shall
need an enlarged supply, then mint more as
the public needs require. That such pro-
ceeding is rational and business-like who
can doubt? Yet there is a sort of politician
who vigorously contends not only that two
millions more of new dollars shall be made
each month, but that the amount shall be
increased to four million dollars a month.
When partisans contend for doing some
thing at the public expense they would
never embark in at their own, we may
be sure that private ends, not public in
terests, are the Indictment By ceasing
to demand them, the public show that it
wants no more silver dollars at present, what
motive, then, can induce any member of
Congress to vote for minting more OF them?
Mr.. Buckner, of Missouri, has made speech
in Congress in which he answers the qnes-
ton. He wants four millions of silver dol
lars a month manufactured "as an
encouragement To silver mining in
the United States;;" in short it is our old
enemy protection" peeping up with diff
terent hat on, that is all. By taking sixty
per cent. of the produce Of the mines, silver
mining is encouraged. No doubt of it.
Good steady custom will encourage any
trade. Let the United States government
take sixty per cent. of all the corn, or cot
ton, or rice that is grown, or two-thirds of
all the plows, or newspapers, or gold
watches that are made, and any one of the
branches selected would be greatly encour-
aged. But why should the silver miner
receive this encouragement more than
the iron miner, or the wood sawyer, or the
cotton planter? Can any reader tell?
To tax the farmer, the locksmith, the cotton
spinners, and the fishermen that the silver
miner may be cheered and encouraged and
make his fortune is scarcely "a square deal"
The silver mines give employment to many
industrious men, Mr.. Buckner pleads, so do
brlck-ysrds and shoemakers' shops, but why
should the brickmaker and the shoemaker
be taxed to encourage" the silver-mine
owner! The owner, the capitalist, not the