The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1891-05-15
About Price and Value.

About Prioe and Value.
The monometallists (those who be-
lieve that gold should be the only
money! hold that it is a gross folly
to have any country furnish the sill
yer kings market by making mon
ey out OF silver. They hold that it is
utterly impossible to regulate the
price OF silver or to maintain it at a
price higher than the law of supply
and demand will justify. And they
are perfectly right. But they forget
that every point they make against
silver can be used with equal force
against gold.
NO one can regulate the value of
any article of merchandise orany COM
modify. To attempt anything of the
kind stamps the party who proposes
it as ignorant of the simplest law in
political economy. Who can regulate
the price of wheat for instance? The
price depends almost exclusively on
the state of the crops. Ii the wealth
er was propitious and the crop a
good one the price will be low-if the
crop is failure the market price is
sure to go up. No human law or
statute can regulate these things.
| Tour friend is not posted on Mime
sofa wheat politics! G. WI
Then there is a great difference be-
tween price and value.
Pearls for instance command a
great price but they have little value.
Their high price is simply freak of
fashion which may end at any time
as the freak of paying thousands of
dollars for tulip bulb ended.
thus it is with a great many other
thlngs-gold and silver for instance.
These metals command a high price
but when you scan the question close
y, you will be compelled to admit
that there is really more water than
solid matter in that species of stock.
vi what real practical use are gold
or silver to mankind? Outside of
comparatively very few uses in the
mechanical arts they are of no more
practical value than pearls.
Gold, as one writer puts it, is only
useful in making idols fer the heath
en- and plugging up rotten teeth.
And there is no use to which either of
these metals, is put but what some
cheaper and equally good substitute
Is in existence.
Ii Robinson Crusoe had been offered
his choice between a mountain of
gold and a hundred barrels of flour
or serviceable vessel, which do you
suppose he would have chosen?
They tell a story of an old miser
who had a vault with large quanti-
ties Of gold, silver and other baubles.
He was in the habit Of visiting the
vault every day to count his hoard,
and one day while thus engaged the
wind blew the door IT,. The door
having a snap lock, the old fellow
was made a prisoner. AS he lived
alone no one knew of his terrible pre-
dicament and he starved to death
surrounded by his great wealth. 1t
is safe to say that the old man, miser
that he was, would have given all his
gold for a loaf of bread.
Now which to him was the most
valuable, gold or grain?
hO OOJCCU VI UI1COC lllu6UIdUlOuS Is
to convince the reader that price is
purely arbitrary-that many things
OF really very little value command
high price. Men will not pay much
for thing they do not need-Mrs.
Toodles was an exception it is true.
She bought every thing that was
cheap, and was induced to buy COT
fin for that reason because it was
handy thing to have around the
house" 1t has been shown by the il
lustration OF the premium on gold
during the war that this premium
was caused by the necessity OF paying
import duties in gold. Had impor-
tiers been permitted to pay duties in
legal money, there could have been
no premium on gold because no one
would pay premium on that which
he did not need-and no one will
have the temerity to assert that all
the people in the United States had
adopted the Toodles plan.
The high price OF gold and silver
are thus proved to be caused by the
artificial demand created for them
because many nations use them for
monetary purposes, not by their USE
fulness.-Robert Schilling.
| They own the President.
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