The record-union., 1893-08-30
PARITY BETWEEN GOLD AND
SILVER.

John P. Young, managing editor of the
Chronicle, has recently made a very COM
prehensive statement relating to the par
ity of value between gold and silver for
the past two or three hundred years.
From the standpoint of the silver men
Mr.. Young's statement will be regarded
as very strong. 1t fails in a single par
ticular. Mr. Young's tabular statement
brings the history OF its subject down to
1873, the time at which silver was said to
have been demonetized. 1t shows that at
the date of its decentralization the parity
of value was about sixteen to one. 1t
omits, however, to state the fact that sill
Yer coins circulated at a discount; that
the gold and silver coinage of the United
States was not circulated at a parity of
sixteen to one at all. In 1873, and for
some time prior thereto, silver was taken
at a discount only. The parity was lost
In fact and existed only in theory. 1t is
within the recollection of every business
man doing business as far back as 1870
that until the Bland Act was passed,
whereby the Government agreed to re-
deem the difference between the actual
and the stamped value of silver coin, it
circulated only at discount; that dis
count part or portion of the time was
equal to 10 per cent.
From the date of the alleged arbitrary
demonetization of silver to the present
time the Congress OF the United States
has been attempting to establish the value
of silver bullion by law. The first de-
vice was to redeem in gold, or what was
its equivalent; to receive silver in pay
ment of customs duties and other
public debts at the value declared
by the stamp, and also to redeem
silver certificates in gold at the option of
the Secretary of the Treasury. There
was, then, in 1S73 an actual depreciation
in silver. Every legislative expedient
which Ingenuity could invent has been
resorted to since that time to maintain a
parity of value between gold and silver
at sixteen to one. All these devices have
failed. The history of legislation in be-
half of silver is an illustrious example of
the inability of a Government to declare
and maintain the law Of commercial
values.
There are four or five States interested
in the production Of silver, and but for
these the silver issue would not exist.
The silver producing industry of this
country is responsible for the entire agi-
tatiop. 1t is the silver miner who wants
permission to take sixty cents worth of
silver to the mint and carry away a
dollar, which by law shall be receivable
for all debts. public and private. The
representative of the silver miner has
amply illustrated his capacity for noise.
The Bland bill was enacted, declaring
that the Government shall coin two
million dollars worth of silver per
month, and might at the option of the
administrative officers coin four million
dollars worth per month. On this silver
declined. Then the Government under
took the task of keeping up the price Of
silver by purchasing it with the peoples
money, and q law was passed obliging the
Secretary of the Treasury to purchase f.
100000 ounces per month at the current
rate of silver. In this, the Government
attempt to bolster up the price of a metal
by making fictitious market for it. and
silver continued to decline. Itwould not
in all probability have declined to its
present low value if the Government had
not undertaken in this way to corner the
metal.
Likewise free coinage will meet with
like result, and the prediction may be
safely ventured that if the Government
of the United States permits the free
coinage of silver on the ratio of sixteen
to one, and declares that the coin so issued
shall be receivable for all debts public
and private, the bullion value OF silver