Morning journal and courier., 1889-05-30
cHAMBRR OF COMMERCE..
Paper Read by Judge Sh eldon on s'Th,

Paper Read by Judge Sh eldon on s'The
 Significance of fmodern Trusts.''
 The Chamber of Commerce met last night. committee was appointed to draft resolu- tions expressive of the sense of the chamber in regard to the death of Harmanus NJ. Welch. Four new members were admitted. paper on "The Significance of Modern Trusts" was read by Judge Joseph Sheldon.
 The paper dealt with the condition in which the modern commercial trust originated. He found those conditions in falli ng prices con tinued for fifteen years in competition that has been crushing with irresistible force towards cheapening; and in certain illegiti- mate facts and forces that work by two shear blades of necessary and wholesome laws.
 1. The law enforcing contracts on those who make them.
 3. And the law prescribing the meaning of the word "dollars' in the contracts them selves.
 But there is gap left between these laws into which victims fall by thousands and millions-the failure to prescribe or provide as to the number of these law defined dollars that are in practical circulation, When the real meaning of every contract, the pressure of every debt, depends literally upon the number of these dollars in circulation, not their substance nor their color, but their number. The fact that they depend also least invalidate the statement that prices and wages do depend on the number, not the substance of these dollars.
 This gap may be difficult, even impossible, to fill or to bridge, but the gap is there. Its existence can at least be pointed out and at tention be consistently called to it's existence and the danger to all from it.
 Whoever can work the shear blades Of these laws, can increase or decrease at will the number of legal tender dollars in circu lation needs no other device to enslave man. kind.
 Conservative measures alone are called for, are practicable, or are to be thought of. Such measure is the unlimited coinage of silver on the same terms as gold. A congress of the Central and South American nations is called to meet in Wash ington in October to consider this very sub- ject for one thing, when an extra session of our congress is called for the same time, which indicates, we may believe, that the administration is alive to the vast import ance of the restoration of silver to it's old po- sition. If this measure is adopted it will accomplish three important results. 1. The raising the price of India bills ill London so that our farmers will be relieved from their loss of one-third of the value of their wheat crop every year, and of all other crops sold in the markets of western Europe in competition with American products. 9. The giving us the preference in the sale of our manufactured goods only reliev- ing our South American countries from the burden of paying for these goods in silver at 25 per cent.
 3. It will add in a very small, but to an entirely safe extent, to the number of legal tender dollars in circulation. thus tending to relieve the pressure towards cheapness and lower prices, in which the modern commer- cial trusts have their origin and which we may read their wonderful signi6cance-a lesson of deep and widespread importance, which we may all pro6tably ponder.