The weekly intelligencer., 1891-03-28
THE WORLDS MONEY.
Letter From Judge Hughes Oh the
Currency Question.
OUR GOLD AND SILVER COIN.
The Part They Play in the Monetary
Transactions OF the Country
and the World.
OUR GOLD AND SILVER COIN
Richmond (virginia) Dispatch.

creditor countries and of their agents
in debtor nations to destroy the none
tary function of silver has brought into
debate the most important economic
question ever forced upon the attention
of mankind. 1t is useless TO waste time
and thought upon the minor incidents
of the audacious movement. If small
minds prefer to discuss the hackneyed
| details of the subject, their contentious,
| like the wrangling of midgets or the
fisticuff of pigmies, may amuse the pub
lie, but can settle nothing. Better to
master the general truth OF the colossal
subject; then particulars will take care
of themselves.
WHY GOLD AND SILVER ARE WORLDS
MONEY.
Gold and silver have been the money
of the world since the beginning of
| commerce among civilized nations.
They have been thus used because they
possess in far higher degree than any
other substances the essential qualities
of beauty; indestructibility; freedom
from rust, decay or chemical change;
nice divisibilily into exact paris; cN-
ceptional unvariableness in quantity;
and extraordinary and unchangeablc
intrinsic worth. The bank which issues
this money is nature. herself. Except
during notable eras these issues have
been so regular, uniform, and steady
that fluctuations in the quantities and
value of gold and silver are imper
ceptiblc and harmless.
HOW MUCH REAL MONEY Is THERE?
The quantities of gold and silver now
in the world cannot be known or stated
with accuracy, but enlightened statisti-
clans estimate them To be about Sl4,-
900, ,000,0 900 in value, of which the
amount in the form of money in circu-
lation is about 81 800, 200, 900, about
half of it gold and half silver. The
annual production of the two metals for
years past has been an average of about
$170, 900, 900, of which $50, 900, 900 are
annually consumed in the arts, or lost,
or worn by use and abrasion; so that
there is annually left TO enter into the
mass of metallic money only about
800, 900, 900, which is not equivalent, in
proportion, TO the annual increase of the
worlds commerce and population, now
rapid beyond all precedent.
II is nature who issues this net
amount of 800, 900, 900 per annum for
the use of mankind as money. IL is
chiefly for the reason that the quantity
of gold and silver produced in the
| world is the result of natural causes,
that these metals are regarded as the
safest of all money, the true money of
commerce.
The fourteen thousand millions of
dollars of gold and silver in the world
are as permanent as the ocean itself,
and its volume is, in general, neither
swollen nor depressed by temporary
and fictious causes.
WHAT GIVES THEIR VALUE 10 GOLD AND
SILVER.
That gold and silver have been excIu-
sively used as money so long and uni
yersally rs history shows them to have
| been used is Il fact which demonstrates
their exclusive fitness for the monetary
function. This capacity to perform
and actual performance of the offices of
money and their use in the arts and for
ornamentatiOn constitute their CONNER
cial value. The commercial world
stands in as great need of 4 medium of
national trade. This need of gold and
silver as money constitutes much more
important and considerable element of
their value in the markets than any
other uses to which they are put. One
or the other of them may be deprived
of its legal-tendcr function in special
localities by local laws, and yet its value
for use as money in the world ut large
will still uphold its market price far
above what it would otherwise COM
mand, even in the places in which il
has been deprived of its monetary value.
In such ease the value of the disfavorcd
metal will be diminished in proportion
to the wealth and influence of the inter-
dieting nation or nations.
Whether any modern nation will de-
priye of the legal-tendcr function either
of the two monetary metals unforlun-
ately depends not upon broad ideas of
the general good, but solely upon its
own sordid individual interests, or rat
or upon IFS own narrow conception of
what those interests are.
WHAT NATIONS WISH To MAKE MONEY
DEAR AND WHAT CHEAP.
With regard to their relations 10 debts
'''o internationally, public and private,
ms may be divided into two classes,
ely: those which owe debts TO Other
ms and those to which debts are
eaking as well of private as OF
C debts due internationally, the
tor nations are Great Britain,
.e, Germany, Holland, Belgium
lark, and Sweden. The amount
hich these are creditors of Other
rs, either on account of their GOV.
,usents or corporations, is estimated
= from Sl2 ,0OO, 900, 900 to Sl5, 900,
900, 900, of which Great Britain holds
So 800, 900, 900 to $4,000, 100000
France fully $1,000, 900, 900, and Ger
many some 81, 300, 900, 900.
On the other hand the nations whicl