The record-union., 1892-02-16
THE WHITE METAL.
MINORITY REPORT ON THE BLAND
SILVER BILL.
Free Coinage a Detriment to This
Country International Confer
ence Recommended.
special to the REcoRp-uN1ox.

Special to the RECoRD-UNIoN.
/ WASHINGTON, Feb. l5.-Williams of
Massachusetts,, from the Committee on
Coinage, has submitted the views of the
minority on the Bland free coinage bill.
The character and purpose of the bill is
outlined, and the report says in part:
The peril is not great of the avowed de-
probation by our Government of the
value of its own promises. We shall
never openly repudiate our debts or a
corrupt medium of payment. The danger
| lies in legislation, such as this bill pro-
poses, which shall make the Government
unable. to maintain its promises and
tokens on basis upon which they have
been accepted. That basis is a dollar
which is exchangeable everywhere:
which does not give up 30 cents at our
border nor yield anything to fire or
water, the dollar of gold.
Substantially all obligations in this
country are payable in gold. The gold
dollar is therefore, not only the best. but
the only honest dollar in which obliga-
tions can now be discharged. But, under
a plausible theory or confident prophesy,
citizens may be misled into repudiation
which they would not consciously an
prove. To make this bill understood as
d measure of reputation, is to secure its
defeat. 1t is perfectly clear that at the
very moment the treasury of the United
States Shall refuse to pay gold coin upon
demand, no one else will receive sixteen
silver dollars in lieu of one gold dollar.
Because single customer of the world for
silver at that price has refused to purchase
it does not follow that the price of silver
fixed by the ratio in this bill can be
maintained, even if our Government is
willing to receive payment of its dues in
silver rnjn and IFS HpEtS in croll
exchange value of silver will be depend
ent alone not on the willingness of the
Government to keep up the exchange.
but on It's ability to do so. Even specula-
ton on the ultimate failure of our treas
ury to maintain its policy might well
suftice to drive gold to a premium, pre-
clpltate scramble tor gold in the treas
ury and suspend gold payments by the
Government regardless OF the will of the
Secretary OF the Treasury
The minority submit that the only DOS
sible result of the legislation proposed in
this bill is the prompt suspension of gold
payments by this Government and the
immediate adoption of q cheaper none
tary standard of silver. The history of
the monetary changes in the past is re-
cited; an international agreement is
urged as necessary; a statement made
that the bill cannot raise the price of sill
Yer to ratio OF value, and it will bring
silver from foreign countries. The stock
OF silver in European countries is set forth
at 81, ,39S, ,000,000. Silver coming from
abroad would destroy the gold standard,
and savings bank depositors, artisans
and pensioners would suffer.
Summarizing, finally, the minority
urges that not even the advocates of free
silver coinage deny that this law is an
experiment, new in the history Of man
kind, and based upon conditions which
have never existed. For such expert
ment nothing can be a justification
which has not in it the certainty of great
reward to the people undertaking the
task. That reward is not in sight OF ANY,
one save the owners Of mines, who de-
sire to receive at the hands of the law
81 294 an ounce for commodity which is
sold in eager competition for two-thirtIs
that sum, though diligently produced at
an average cost of fifty-one cents an
ounce. When we attempt to raise the
price of the annual product of our mines
more than 40 per cent. we undertake to
lift also the value of S334 ,000, ,000 worth of
have not the slightest interest.
The cooperation of foreign owners is
not asked, and the risk OF this expert
ment, SiX-Sevenths of which is for the
benefit of foreign countries, is to be
thrown upon the shoulders of this repub-
lie. The volume of currency will not be
increased, but diminished; the bill itself
viii drive our gold into the Golfers of
spectators; invite foreign holders of our
securities to sell at any price to escape
loss by reputation, and our whole mon
etary system will be thus disrupted.
Accompanying the report is bill au-
thorlzlng the President to invite an inter-
national monetary conference.