The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-03-31
HE SHOWS Hts EARS.
The Peculiar COntOrtiOns Of the
Tribune Scribe.
WHO WRITES HIMSELF DOWN.
Some Cold Logic That Should he Digested
Before He Again Appears in
Public Print.

A recent issue of the Tribune contained
this statement: Mexico has been in the
business long enough to realize that man
who produces 81 900 from a mine does the
state much more service than he who gets
it through raising it in crop from the
earth. The miner is creator; the
farmer only improves little on the metnous
of the stone age"
THE HERALD commented upon that state
ment as follows: ''In what way imaginable
we ask, is the miner creator that the
farmer is not! Neither of them creates
the elements which minister to the wealth
and subsistence of themselves and their
fellow creatures. A Being greater than the
miner-though the Tribune may doubt it
creates alike the precious ores that his
labor brings from the depths to the surface
of the earth, and the crops that are planted
and harvested by the farmer. If the one
creates wealth, as we viii admit for ar
gument's sake he does in one sense, the
other creates the means of subsistence with
out which the miner, the manufacturer, the
railway king or the merchant would starve
&read is the staff of life but gold and
Rtiiver are not, though they may serve to
Purchase it, and under certain conditions
make it more plentiful
To this luminous and convincing passage,
the Tribune attempted to reply, but the
answer was so devoid of point that here
the matter rested. To show at greater
length the difference between the correct
and logical position of THE HERALD and the
untenable position of the Tribune, l shall
make few quotations from the great au-
thOrities on this subject, only adding enough
to make the extracts Ineligible.
The quotations are from John StuartMill,
a great name in English thought: w. Stan
ley Jevons, perhaps the foremost logician OF
our day: j. b. Say, an authority highly
respected in France; and Francis A.
Walker, president of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, aleading American
economist.
'All that man can do is to reproduce eX-
isting materials under another form SO
that there is no creation of matter, but
ONLY of utility; and this | call production of
wealth. Production is the creation, not Of
matter, but of utility. u. B. Say.
Here is the reply OF the Tribune: "The
difference between values and the measure
of values is something that has never pen
etrated the Uranium of THE HERALD"
Well. what is the difference: The differ
ence, if there is any, is that values are
worth more than the measure of values"
The measure is convenience; the values
are q necessity. A bushel basket, foot
rule, pair of weighing scales, and quart
cup, are all measures Of value, and 1t would
be a serious inconvenience to be without
them; but to say that, because wheat IS
measured in terms called bushels, therefore
the baskets are worth more than the wheat
is much the same as to say that money is
worth more than the things 1t measures. l
say much the same because money is a
more important measure than bushel bas-
kets: but the difference is chiefly one Of
degree, not of kind.
The Tribune continues: 'All men are
working for a certain amount Of something
1t is not for wheat or beef or butter, but
for that which savage and civilized men
alike recognize as the measure of values. J"
No men do work for wheat and beef and
butter; if they can Immediately secure
these things with money, they will accept
-F2he money. They will WorkfOr these things
without being able to get money for them;
but they will not work for money unless
they can get such things as these for the
money.
The Tribune then caps the climax as fol
lows: Because the one wheat, beef, and
butter) belongs to what IS perishable, to
what is fixed III value by the consumption
of men, while the other gold and silver
goes at once into that other something,
which the world has for thousands of years
been struggling to obtain portion of, and
which controls and measures the power of
nations and individuals" By the same
reasoning: Whatever is imperishable IS
worth more than anything perlshable
Rock is imperishable, and wheat perish
able: therefore rock is more valuable than
wheat!
IAN iron-master contracts for the deliv-
cry of a quantity of coal. to his furnaces.
When the day comes the coal is not procur-
able, but the contractor sends in the money
price instead, saying that the latter IS less
perishable than coal. Yet it would be diff
ticult to convince the iron master of the
service done him by the delivery of the
money. Should a dyer send an order for
dyeing woods from abroad, it would be a
positive injury to send him gold, on the
plea, that with equal value, it has the ad-
vantage of greater durability. He had no
occasion whatever for durable article;
what he wanted was substance, which,
though decompOsed in his watts, would
quickly re pear in the cOlors Of his
stuffs u. B. Say.
The Tribune saws ''that other something
controls and measures the power
of nations and individuals" By that
other something" it means money
The total money of the United States IS
81 500 900, 600; of Great Britain, 1901 100000;
of India, 81, O1OOOO,OOO; Of France, 81 ,9S9,-
100000; of Mexico. S50,OOO,0O0. (F'rom the
report of the director of the mint, 1881
That is, according to the Tribune France
has the greatest power (Or wealthy The
United States has the next greatest, India
the next. Great Britain the next, etc.
absurdity too manifest for comment
The total value of the money of any
country is but an atom compared with the
gross amount of other values. Money, hay
ing been pronounced TO be the measure Of
all values whatever, it was boldly inferred
that in every country, the total value of
the money is equal to the value of all other
commodities: it does not follow, the Trib-
ure to the contrary, Notwithstanding.
"a yard or a foot is a real measure of
length; it always presents to the mind the
idea of the self-same degree OF length. A
man six feet high in one place IS as tall as
a man six feo high in any other part of the
world. But if I am told that a house IS or
was worth 81, 600, what idea does that sum
present TO the mind! A house in Paris
worth $1,000 in the days of Henry ". IS
now worth a great deal more. The huctua-
tions in the value of what we term "a dol
lar'' have been perhaps greater in the one
hundred years of our own history than in
the case of any other article. One house is
said to be worth $1,000, another $1,000,
which is simply saying the former is worth
two of the latter" And IF this be all that
is meant by the term measure of value, |
admit that money is such measure. 1t is
not a fixed measure, the first requisite of
which is invariability, and its value cannot
be made invariable. Say.
SIN point of fact money IS bought and
sold like other things, whenever other
things are bought and sold for money.
Whoever sells corn or tallOw or cotton buys
money. Whoever buys bread or wine or
clothes, sells money to the dealer in those
articles The money with which people are
Offering to buy is money offered for sale. -
Mill, ''Principles of Political Economy"