St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-03-02

does not to them seem to be sustained by
facts or sound reasoning The total volume
of currency in the United States outside of
gold is less than s75O,000,000. 1t
is believed to be princi-
pie of economy perfectly well
settled that if the volume of $3.50, ,O00,0 600 is
not sufficient in itself to maintain the prices
in this country at a. level at International
prces.then gold will come here and stay here in
sufficient amount to make, with the volume
already in circulation, what will constitute
our distributive share of the worlds money,
as determined by our international trade,
that $3.50, ,OOO, 900 is not sufficient volume
to main tain prices
AT THE WORLDS LEVEL
of prices, as evinced by the fact that $780,
900, 600 of gold, considerable part Of which,
at least, is in circulation either in the form
of coin or certificates, now stays here, aud it
will 60 away only when the prices become
lower elsewhere than they are here. 1t is
believed, therefore, that no such crisis as has
been foreboded can ever take
place in the United States under the
existing conditions. 1t is not
believed to be in the power of all the banks
in the country, even if they were so disposed,
to take gold out of circulation and hold it for
any length of time at premium. They
must first lock up the worlds money and
arrest the worlds commerce. Nor can paper
or silver or silver certificates now in circu-
lation side by side with gold expel gold. The
gold can be expelled by forcing into circu-
latiou, in addition to $780, 900, 900, either sill
yer or paper equal to the entire volume of
gold now in circulation. In that manner,
under Gresham's law, gold might be ex-
PEELED, and probably would be.
1t is doubtless true too that if the popula-
tion and wealth of this countrYwere at a
standstill then the continued seoinage Of
silver in sufficient volume woIld in time
expel gold from circulation, but as long as
the population and wealth go on Increasing
then the conditions of the problem are
changed. In fact in order to preserve
A STABLE RATIO
between the money volume and population
and wealth an annual income not less
than forty millions of currency of a
sole kind is required. In other words
the increase of population and wealth
calls for the addition to our circulation of at
least $40, 900, 900 year. If while these con-
ditions continue silver is coined at the rate
only of S2S, 900, 600 year there is left still
considerable void to be filled with gold. This
is reason why gold has increased in the
country steadily since the act of 1878 was
passed and why gold has increased by nearly
s14, 900, 900 during the last year, and is now
increasing at rate of nearly 100000 a
month Notwithstanding the depres-
sion of business in the country, and
as matter of fact there is
to-day more gold in the country than there
ever was before in its whole history. An
other fact is that $50, 600, 600 of gold in the
treasury was put there in exchange for
SILVER CERTIFICATES.
The immediate effect of stopping the coinage
of silver must necessarily be to lower the
price of silver bullion and gradually to ap-
preciate the value of gold the world over.
The difficulties in the way Of establishing an
international ratio so much desired, or of a
readjustment of the relative value to gold
here, would thereby be increased. How
it is possible for such things to
take place as was predicted in the last para :
graph of the letter it is difficult to see. Gold
is to be withdrawn to its boarding places
followed by an unprecedented contraction in
the actual volume of our currency. Such a