The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-12-09
THE FUTURE OF SILVER.

The International conference will do
nothing toward helping US out Of the
"~siiver' swamp. in which We are, to
say the least. getting badly mired. We
can not continue to support silver against
the whole commercial world without be-
ing ultimately brought down to a 81! yer
standard. Europe is not disposed to help
us carry our load, because Europe knows
that our finances are always made a polit-
ical football by both parties in congress,
and that no agreement could be made of
whose permanency we could give Europe
any assurance.
OF course. Europe knows that if the
United States goes out of the market as a
heavy buyer of silver, the price of silver
bullion will depreciate, and the markets of
Europe will be severely disturbed. Never
theless, nobody can pull US ont of cur
silver swamp but ourselves. and we shall
suffer something even after We have
stopped the governments purchase of sill
YER and have ceased its coinage. But be.
fore we have struggled our way back to
firm ground we shall probably have an
other fight over free silver.
To go on, as we do now, is fraught with
ultimate disaster. while to stop the pur-
chase and coinage of silver. as recon-
mended by every administration since the
passage of the Bland-Allison act of 1878,
would be our highest wisdom. To so for
ward is to feed alcohol to a drunken man,
while to stop the purchase and coinage of
silver is to sober the drunkard and cure
his headache. England, through China
and India. would suffer considerably, but
England knows that nobody can save the
United States from the consequences of an
enacted fraud and folly save the United
States.
We were right in 1873 when we demone-
tized silver, which had already demone-
circulation save as subsidiary coinage.
We were wrong in passing the Bland
Allison act of 1878. The pressure of the
free silver" party persuaded us to double
the compulsory purchase of silver under
the act of July, 1890. Under this act we
shall ultimately get to free silver" and
if it is repealed at this session of congress
w IL hc Iity-ti@t0 SOL6lSSS We Shall uuQ
the silver party renewing their cIamor for
the free coinage of silver. If free silver is
enacted Cleveland will veto it, but in the
meantime we are likely to suffer a good
deal of financial disturbance whether We
repeal the act of July, 1890. or refuse to re-
peal it.
The first step to financial health, how
-,o- 20 ,cn .a>,,l &c tkc ~~k af J,1. ,cnn
under which the government is purchas-
ing each month $500, 900 ounces of silver
at the market price, paying in return for it
le~gal-tender notes, redeemable in gold or
silver at the option of the government.
BY the end of the year there will be in
the treasury vaults nearly three thousand
tons of this bullion, or q sufficient guam
tity 20 keep the entire mint facilities of
the country busy for over two and a half
years if it we're to be coined.
The report of the director of the mint.
, read in the senate in July last, gave the
mount of silver dollars stored in the
vaults as 375, IS9,25t. The lumber of sill
yer dollars in circulation at the same date
was So, 779. Asa. There have been coined,
tAitfSIpiSs tAD,tDS, 'Ot SILVER 0OiGdTs, ana OF
this amount less than one-seventh has
passed into circulation. If the three thous-
and o Of bullion were TO be coined and
placed in the treasury with the silver dol
lars already there, We should have a total
Of over 460.0o0,o0 of silver. dollars, all
locked up and all lying idle.
Every ounce Of this silver has been pur-
| -In.as "a, t~.S CD,,~ ~ z. L. -
chased for 80 cents more than its presen.
value per ounce. The aggregate loss on
the whole is more than 500. 600. 600. If an at
tempt were made to sell II, the price would
fall enormously. Senator Sherman said in
his speech in the senate on June /, 1882.
that to attempt to sell it on a falling mar
ket would only be adding misery TO ruin.
We have got this vast mass, and We can
not sell it; We dare not sell IT,"
This vast amount of idle silver refuses
10 pass into circulation. is constantly fall
ing in value. The bullion value of the
silver dollar is today about IS cents, and i.
is held above its real value by the fact that
the government is able to redeem it in
gold.
That is the present situation, but this
situation cannot always continue. A
writer in the Ctatury for December ~recites
these silver facts and then makes the fol-
lowing impressive commeuts:
Whist woa-d happen II the government, fud-
ing Itself with "A deficit in its treasury. and thus
being without q supply OF gold, were TO refuse
70 redeem its silver notes in gold, and were 10
avail Itself Of It's option to redeem them In sill
ver7 We should drop az once from the goid 10
tie silver standard, and every dollsr IN silver
would be worth only its marie: price. or abogt
s. cents. Il wonld Guy oaly o. cents worth os
goods, ana every wage -ssrner would discover
' that &c Aa& lost thsse slsaias OF lis wages, that