Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1892-01-15
TIE SILVER QUESTION.

to V. rmOnters rs was the sermon of the
late Rev. Mr.. Converse on the subject of
Lberian colonization TO the members
of the Congregational churches of the
State % years ago, came to the front last
week in a bright new speech, as fresh
and clean-cut as are the silver dollars
whose further multiplication it was de-
signed to stay-when they come from
the mint. He showed that we "have
purchased since 1873 silver to the amount
of $37G ,925, ,S27, and have coined over
400,000,000 OF silver dollars, but the
amount of SILVER purchased, at its present
market value, shows that we haye been
losing heavily in the silver business, and
have relieved the owners of silver bullion
from a dead loss, amounting to S3G0G3,-
64S, by taking tins bullion Off their
hands" But today there are in the
treasury 10000 tons of these dollars,
(which even burglars have almost ceased
to covct, and only express companies
appreciate its value when they lug it
across the continent, but which the gov
Cl - l'luilCu w lplu hIh' Sutlu
night and day, together with all forth
coming monthly additions"
Continuing, he said:
When and where is this silver deluge
to end: In ten years more, unOur exist
ing statutes, the government may have
locked up in its subterranean vaults sill
yer to the aggregate amount Of, perhaps.
more than one thousand million dollars,
foI all OF which its abligutiUls, payable
in coin, will be outstanding. Is this,
like the river of the poet, to run on for
ever? And shall this nundation be
further aggravated by unlimited free
coinage? No silver certificates, or treas
ury notes issued for silver bullion, have
been presented for payment in silver, but
they are paid in gold when so demanded.
How long they can be thus kept on a
parity with gold is already matter of
public aud profound concern, and largely
dependent upon an honest and proper in
depreciation of the law and the courage
and skill of the secretary of the treasury.
Whenever the gold in the treasury shall
vanish, and it may vanish under a cloud
of silver as well as under a cloud of adj
verse exchanges, these certificates and
notes can then be paid only in standard
silver dollars, and these, as money, are
known to be not worth their face value.
As security for silver certificates or
treasury notes, which are to circulate at
par with gold they are notoriously in
adequate, as 1928 grains of silver, nine
tenths fine, will fetch no more than ~
cents. 1t would be hardly less safe, and
certainly equally honest, to base such
certificates and notes, and circulate them
as good money, upon iron or copper, or
upon wheat or tobacco, purchased and
accumulated in like manner, at 335 per
cent above the market value, as to base
such circulation upon the sO-called STAN
dard silver dollars under free coinage.
He pointed out that for centuries silver
had been growing more plentiful and
cheaper, saying:
In 1854, according to the director of
the mint, the annual silver product of the
world amounted to $4,000, 900, but i'm
1890 it had swollen to Sl66, ,6G7 900, or
over four times the product of 1851. viii
any learned Senator contend that this
enormous and Unprecedented increase of
silver has not had the usual and ineXora-
BILE effect of diminishing its current val
ne? John Locke in 1890 stated that silver
had fallen seven-tenths since Henry VII.
in consequence of the amount poured in
from America. When the worlds stock
of silver for twenty-five years had barely
increased annually Sll,000,000, Adam
Smith says, it fell to one-third of its pre-
vious value. Neither Locke nor Smith
were unfriendly to silver. | leave the
tyros of 1891 to adjust any differences
with the renowned authorities of 1890 and
l776 as to the effect of largely increased
supply upon the value of silver. The
world in earlier times accepted the facts,
and we cannot escape or dodge the in
surmountable facts in the history of the
present silver era.
Summing up, he said he had attempted
to demonstrate:
First That the depreciation of silver
is both so great aud universal that unlim-
ited coinage could not be maintained
on the present standard with gold,
but would suddenly wreck the country
by silver revolution.
Second That unlimited coinage would
interdict all international silver compacts.
Third. That there is no scarcity of
money in circulation, but instead the
amount Is twice as great as it was in 1873,
and is increasing on canter.
Fourth. That silver standard would
be equivalent to a horizontal reduction of
the tariff of 20 per cent, if not more, and
an equal reduction of all pensions.
Fifth. That the enormous increase of
silver to the extent of four times the pro-
duct of 1854, cOincident with a greatly
lessened demand for it, has so deprecIat-
ed its value that unlimited coinage by
the United States must prove disastrous
national blunder.
Sixth. That there is no magic in any
law of Congress which can make the
world accept AN ounce of silver as worth
any more in coin than in bullion.
Seventh. That the parties to first profit
by free coinage would be the corporate
owners of silver mines only, and the par
ties to finally suffer the largest losses by
it would be the great mass of our people,