The advocate and Topeka tribune., 1892-08-24

favor Of a safe paper money. Ii bV
safety is meant constant conVertbility at
will into coin, no paper money could be
safer than that based dollar for dollar on
coin or bullion in the government vaults.
Such paper will be universally used in
transacting the business of the country.
A certificate in money-note form Issued
by the United States treasury for de-
poslt of silver in its vaults would be
neither heavier, bulkler, nor less conven-
lent than a like certificate Issued for
deposit of gold.
Jevons Mechanism Of Money, page
2OS says:
The use Of representative money is becoming
30 general In the most advanced commercial
countries, that the portability OF metallic money
Is question Of very minor Importance
The Journal Of the London Statistical
Society March, 1879 says:
Such is the development Of credit In this cOun-
try, that It has been roughly calculated that 81
per cent. OF payments are ordinarily erected by
checks. bills, and other expedients Of credit;
~ Z
per cent. BY coin.
In this country the proportion Of money
used In settling balances, reckoning both
bank notes and coin as money, Is some
what larger than In Eugland, but Is still
small.
THE COMBINED MASS OF GOLD AND SILVER
HAVING BEEN THE MONETARY MEASURE
OF VALUES, is IT JUST TO REDUCE THE
MEASURE BY DIsCARDING EITHER METALP
The facts that both gold and silver
have heretofore been used as money,
that prices have been controlled by their
combined volume, and that existing con-
tracts on an enormous scale have been
entered into on that basis by states, mu-
inequalities, corporations and individuals,
are the most important Of all the facts to
be considered In respect of propositions
to demonetize either metal. If gold
alone had always been used as money,
although less steady as a measure of
value than gold and silver together, and
In other respects less desirable, the OBJ
lection would be we'll taken, that the ad
dition of silver would double the existing
volume of money and thereby depreciate
it, and thus injure the creditor. The
arguments Of justice and expediency are
more cogent against diminishing the
mass Of money by discsrding silver, when
both gold and silver have been always
and almost universally used as money.
Toe great majority Of creditors have
other connections with the business oper-
ations of the communities In which they
live, and other forms of investment than
those which constitute them creditors.
What they would gain as creditors by a
contraction in the volume of money,
would be partially, II not entirely, lost by
their unavoidable participation in the
general depression resulting from the
fall In prices which such contraction
would occasion. Alison england In 1915
and 1845) says of the currency contrac-
ton brought on by the British gold re-
sumption policy of 18l9-'2l:
There can be no doubt that the reduction of
interest has injured the holders OF the available
capital OF the country nearly as much, In many
cases. as the producing classes have been In
jufed by the fail ln the money prices of their
commodities. Probably It has reduced
the incomes Of creditors 40 per cent.
And so, on the other hand, what they
might lose as creditors through an
abundance of money and a general rise
of prices would be more or less compen-
ssted by the buoyancy and activity of
business, and by the enlarged revenues
Rrorn pa0l aataka and 6vad oanItol vub;oh