St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-03-26
SILVER IN ENGLAND.

1t might seem from recent debate in
congress that the United States was the
only country that ever experienced diff
ficulty with an equalization Of its coin
age. This is far from being true. At
the present day free silver coinage has
driven gold from the market in Mexico.
! The history of France previous to the
issue of aSsignatS exhibits the same diff
feuIty. Two hundred years ago the
same conditions troubled Germany. and
continued until The adoption of an hon.
est comparison of the relative value OF
CONS. The GLOBE has been favored
with copy of the London Magazine for
December, 1759-l33 years ago. Under
the editorial head, "Some COnSidera-
tons OH the Cause of the Scarcity of
Silver Coin, With a Proposal for
Remedy Thereof" it says:
about $50 years ago, i'll the forty third
of Queen ELIZABETH, the mint settled the
standard fineness of the silver coin of
England to be II ounces 2 pennyweights. or
222 pennyweights, fine silver, and Is penny
weights of alloy in every pound-weigbt Troy
of l. ounces. The pound weight of standard
silver was TO be cut in sixty-two pieces,
nominaIly called shillings, which in cur
. rency were TO pass for I'D each. So long as
the market price of standard silver does not
exceed the coinage price, nor the proportion
of our silver 10 our gold coin exceed the
proportion subsisting among our neighbor-
ing nations, so long there can be no profit
able temptation to melting, exporting or
bartering the silver to the loss of the patton.
But if the market price of silver exceeds the
coinage price about or or 8 or s per cent,
such profit will be sufficient temptation to
melting, exporting or bartering the silver
coin till all the heavy silver money be drained
away to the loss of the nation. Or if the
coinage price of our gold coin exceeds the
market price. whereby the proportion of sill
yer to gold sufficiently exceeds the proper
ton subsisting among our neighboring ia
tons; in this case also, the heavy silver
money may be drainsd away to the loss of
the nation"
In this editorial, written 100 years ago,
the writer dwells particularly upon that
period when the intrinsic value of sill
yer was far greater than it now is. Far
Their along in his deductions the writer
shows that the same conditions sur
round the coinage of gold. The entire
argument is against the debasement of
either silver or gold. He draws his illus
trations from silver because at that time
silver was being drained from the coun-
try because 1T was worth more, coinage
standard, than was gold. Against this
disparity between the TWO metals the
writer inveighS strongly and offers a
remedy. He proposes to raise the fut-
ure coinage price Or value "by increase
of tale in coinage in conformity to the
governing market price on the average
of the last ten or twenty years."
In other words, the writer very sensi-
bly, recognizes the fact that the markets
of the world always fix the intrinsic
value of money. wherever coined, and
he proposes to honestly adjust that
value at home. 1t would seem that
some of our modern statesmen were a
long way behind this ancient writer in
sagacity, if not in honesty.