The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-05-07
~IprirnHnraI.
The Effect OF Shipping Gold.

They certainly are, as class, quite as
heavy sufferers from disturbance OF the
circulating medium as any. The recent
refusal of congress to stop the coinage of
silver dollars deprives that question of
immediate practical interest but 1t does
not make it needless that it should be
we'll understood.
There has been considerable exporta-
ton of gold going on, and this fact is
being used by the alarmists, who have
been telling us for the last six years of the
horrible consequences of coming silver.
Why gold has been exported ought not
to be difficult to understand. Our exporta.
tions of food products have decreased,
owing to abundant and cheap supplies of
bread-stuffs elsewhere. Business has been
dull for some time, because grain farmers
are short of funds, and because manufac-
turing has been over.done. Two large
classes of consumers, those concerned in
grain-growing and those employed in
manufactures, are spending less money.
This of course makes trade slack. When
trade is slack there is more coin In this
country than is needed for use; and if it
pays trihe over the cost OF freight and
insurance on the metal to ship gold to
Europe, it will be shipped. 1t is only
question whether gold or sterling ex.
change is cheapest in the market. This
is gold-producing country, and our stock
of the metal increases, when not being
shipped, until at last there is an unused
surplus (greater in dull times) that is sure
to go abroad wherever there is more use
for it. Gold and silver are as natural
exports from the United States as cotton
and grain.
A writer in the May Atlantic discusses
the silver question from the bankers
standpoint, likening the silver dollars to
cage of wild beasts, which are now likely
to break out and cause havoc. To be sure,
he admits that the great bulk of the silver
coinage is already practically in circula'
ton, as he says At the present writing
the United States owns no more silver
dollars than it did year ago. The dol
lars get out as fast as they are coined.
At the present writing the treasury owns
only 100000 of the s164,0OO 900 that
have been coined" $96,000,000 of this
sum circulates in the form of certificates,
and about $30,000000 as coin, in the
hands of the people. As the latter sum is
only about half dollar per head of the
population, and as this writer admits that
there can be no decline in the value of
silver dollars as compared with gold, so
long as they are needed for change, in the
place of the one and two.dollar greenbacks,
and as these small greenbacks are no
longer being issued from the treasury to
replace those that become unfit for circu.
lation, it seems that there should be no
immediate danger.
The writer of the article referred to
declares the bill restoring the coinage of
the silver dollar (Which had been very
quietly demonetized) to have been class
legislation" on the ground that it was for
the benefit of the silver mining interest.
This is no less than confession that the
prior demonstration of the silver dollar,
which had constituted our standard since
the beginning of our government, was
"class legislation in behalf of the own.
ers of gold. And this is further proved
by his admission that the national banks
tried to nullify the silver dollar act by
refusing to receive silver dollars for bal
ances in their clearing houses. This was
put an end to, however, by new law for
bidding any national bank to be mem.
Der of any clearing house which refused
silver for balances. 1t is easy to see
where "class interests were refused sup
port by congress in this matter.
But to return to our subject. The
writer quoted claims that if the exporta-
ton of gold should 60 on until all the
government reserve of gold is drawn out
of the treasury, the only accessible stock
of gold will then be the reserves of gold in
the banks. He admits that the reserves
are now largely in excess of the legal
requirements, and he ignores the constant
production of the mines. But he con-
tinues "Suppose silver coinage to be
persisted in silver alone to be paid for
redemption of greenbacks, for appropria-
tions, and for the interest on the public
debt, and then default in our cotton and
cereal products, European war, or any
movement which would cause a drain of
gold to Europe. The effect upon
our national credit of paying interest and
principle in silver dollars will
be to send our bonds home from Europe
and increase the tendency to ship gold"
etc., etc. All that need be said to this
is that in such sad (even if impossible)
concatenation of contingencies, it would
be better to have the silver currency left
than no metallic money at all. But the
whole tenor of these bug-a.boo supposi.
tions can have no worse effect upon sensi-
BILE people than to recall, perhaps, the old
story of the hysterical girl whom her
mother found "drowned in tears one