Morning journal and courier., 1885-12-14

ratio of 1515 to 1 of gold, as in European I coinage, instead of at our present ratio of 1t | to 1, the President might think it his duty te denounce 77 cent dollar, as he now does l what he calls ali 80 cent dollar.
 It is said that the 'Eso-called debtor class l are not dishonest because they are in debt. It is respectfully submitted that they may be l no more dishonest in wishing to avoid legis lation which they think means contraction than is that part of the so-ealled creditor class, small in numbers but great in power which insists upon legislation, the direct tendency of which seems to the debtor class to be towards doubling the purchasing ! power of money and thus practically doubling all debts.
 The laboring man, the savings of whose life time, amounting to thousand dollars, have been invested in home or farm worth two thousand dollars, and who has given mortgage for the unpaid balance, can hardly be expected to favor contraction which may enable the morgtagee to take the property and have it appraised at even less than the amount of the debt.
 It is said that ''prosperity hesitates upon our threshold"
 So the waves of the sea hesitate preparato- " to the perigean tide which nothing but an interference with established laws can pre- vent.
 The picture of the terror which has already seized upon the people, in view of the ''cease- less stream of silver which threatens to over flow the land" !" may be 8 pathetic one, but in the light of the fact that the United States is now coining but forty-seven cents of silver in the year for each of our people, and that each suc ceeding year makes the amount coined, per capita, less, the wonder is that 1t did not oc- to the President or his financial adviser that such picture might fade from the i'm agination like tinnest fog in the sunlight of these incisive words, found in another part of the message: ''The laws of progress are vital and organic, and we must be conscious of that irresistible tide of commercial expan- sion which, as the concomitant of our active civilization, day by day, is being urged on- ward by those increasing facilities of produc- tlon, transportation and communication to which steam and electricity have given birth. Our duty instructs us to address ourselves to the development of the vast resources of the great area committed to our charge"
 How shall we address ourselves to that de- yelopment? Shall it be by legislation direct ly calculated to so depreciate the value of silver bullion as to make it's mining unprof- table and thus, as gold and silver are largely found together in the same mines, to seal the fountain sources of the precious metals which for unnumbered centuries have been used to- gether as money? Shall it be by striking out the product, amounting to eighty millions a year, of those metals? (Not thus thought the wise king who ''made silver and gold to be as stores in Jerusalem.')
 Shall it be- by depriving of business the great system of railways, constructed at large expeuse and with marvellous engineer ing skill, through the great mining regions of the West9
 Shall it be by giving to India the greater part of our market in Europe, for wheat and cotton, lesser part of which, thanks to the depreciation in silver, India has already se- cured?
 Shall it be by adding to ''the vast army of the unemployed" which excites the Presi- dents warm solicitude, another army whose magnitude shall make that of the present one seefn insignificanta
 Possibly to restore the confidence which the opponents of silver coinage seem to be doing all in their power to shake, Congress may find it expedient to insist that the full amount of four millions worth of silver bull lion (the monthly coinage of which is now permitted, but not strictly enioined,) shall be coined, Thus doubtless the value of silver might be appreciated, while the volume and value of our wheat and cotton exports might at the same time be measurably increased
 SPECIE BASIS.