Wichita eagle., 1890-01-19
WHAT'S THE MATTER?
Lack of Metal Money as a Measure of
Value.

Meat and bread are the two prime necessities O
life demanded by humanity everywhere in the pro
ali other domains. Yet Kansas today " suffers be
cause for these prime commodities she can secure
for the time being of iron and all other minerals,
wooens and cottons, and of all the luXurleS o.
but bread and meat are in continuous and ever in
ereasing demand, yet Kansas can not get the aetna
the matter?-Wichlta EAGLE.
The Infamous dressed beef combine ex-
plains all the mystery of the low price OF
beef in Kansas and the railway transpor-
taton proDlem-the policy of railroads
charging indefensibly high rates for trans.
porting grain accounts for the low price OF
wheat in a large Observation-Disclosures
The Champion is mistaken in assign
ing the cause for the general depression
from low prices. We have no excuse
for beef combines or railroad extortions,
but when the price of American refrig-
orator beef in Liverpool is cents per
pound by the quarter for fore quarter,
and 10 cents for hind quarter, it means
Kansas prices for the live animal at not
above 1-2 cents. When wheat is worth
but 80 cents to 81 in Liverpool it means
with freights even cut one-half, less than
cost of production in Kansas.
The difficulty is in the measure of val
ues. The worlds surplus product of
wheat and meat, wool and cotton goes
to Europe, and the price these staples
will bring is determined by the quantity
of the surplus as compared with the
quantity of the worlds available stock
Of gold. The worlds production and
business has grown much more rapidly
than the worlds stock of gold, hence as
the volume of business has enlarged, so
has there been steady contraction in
prices Up to 1878 gold and silver
unitedly constituted the stock of metal
money of all western European govern
ments and the United States, England
excepted, the two metals constituting
the standard of values, but in that year,
all, discarded silver, which even under
our present laws is little else than token
money. Ali economic writers take 1878
as the date of the general decline in
values throughout Europe and this
country. The case is too PLAIN to be
mistaken. To illustrate: The COM
mercial world, we say, had two billions
each of gold and silver, both of which
was money in fact, both constituting the
metal money of commerce and standard
of values. The money function OF one
of these metals was destroyed, the other
possessing the power previously exer-
cised by both.
Where one of the remaining dollars
had previously bought a bushel of wheat
it must now buy two and SO with all
lines of business. And just as produc-
ton and business is annually outgrow-
ing the growth of the worlds gold sup
ply so in a corresponding ratio are
fornal Gnxrr an6 will thnyy no
downward until we REINFORCE the
volume of the measure of values either
in the discovery of new gold supplies
or restore silver to parity with gold as
it was prior to 1918. If buyer has a
thousand dollars to pay for a thousand
bushels of wheat this year it is equal to
one dollar per bushel and If he has next
year but the same sum and he buys two
thousand bushels, he can pay but fifty
cents per bushel.
What do men form pools, trusts and
combines for? To prevent selling their
goods at lower prices. Falling prices is
the womb in which trusts are born and
when this and European countries by
adopting a measure of values of one
metal, when we declared nothing Is
money but gold" we opened up an ire
sistible current that for seventeen years
has been sweeping everything into the
great vortext of lowering values. Don't
fiatter yourselves that there is any other
money in fact than gold. There is repre-
sentative money, representing gold, used
in making exchanges, but not in giving
price TO anything. The price is deter
mined by the relative size of the worlds
stock of gold and the worlds volume of
production and business and as the latter
IS of most rapid growth so must prices
continue downward. -McPh Free