Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1893-06-28

Liverpool s1.2O. Average price of -
pounds of wheat in New York, S116
plus 81 cents freight. makes price in
Liverpool 81. 1871, which lacks but half
cent bushel of bringing theory and
practice together. If each farmer will
multiply by % cents the aggregate
number of bushels of wheat sold by
him in the ten years, he can see Just
how much he has been damaged by
silver demonstration.
All this is merely preliminary to the
statement that those best posted In
monetary matters assert that were the
Sherman silver bullion purchasing act
repealed, and no free coinage measure
substituted therefor, the price of silver
bullion would go down to 80 cents. and
perhaps. even as low as so cents an
ounce. This would. of course, greatly
intensity the evil conditions now exist
ing, and would further depreciate the
already ruinously low price of wheat
and cotton.
So. then, it appears that so long as
India remains upon silver basis, the
United States, in self defense. must
adopt the free and unrestricted coinage
of silver, to the end that the low price
of silver may not prove the source of
the spoliation and ruination of the
American farmer. Either India must
adopt the gold standard or the United
States must accord to silver free and
unrestricted coinage For the United
States the evils connected with, partial
| metallism have less terrors than those
directly consequent upon the entire de-
-
silver basis, forms an almost unsur-
mounta bic obstacle in the way of the
United States adopting a rational, scien-
tific. American monetary system.
What, then, can we do? We can do
| this: Supplement our volume of gold
and silver money with an additional
volume of absolute full legal tender pa
| per money, which shall be not prom
ise to pay, but promise to receive, and
| shall not be redeemabl in any other
! kind of money. Reinforce and support
| our monetary system with an act of
| congress providing that as fast as we
lose metallic money by export, there
shall be issued an exactly equal amount
! of absolute legal tender paper money
| to take its place, and thus render the
| pernicious fallacy of metallism power
| less TO work any harm. This Is the
scientific solution of the problem in the
| interest of the wealth producers
| George c. Ward, in Topeka (Kan.) Ad-
vocate.
For some time past have been con-
vinced that some sort of tabulated
statement should be formulated, cover
ing period of years. and showing the
! nrina of yvhoof in Enyland
the United States and the relation
borne to such price by the steady de-
| probation in the market price of silver
bullion The foregoing excerpt is the
result of an effort on my part to fill a
long felt want"
| Not more than forty-eight hours had
elapsed from the time l sent to the Ad-
vocate the copy for the article from
which the foregoing is an extract until
became convinced that there were
serious errors in the article. l wrote
at once for the return of the copy, but
too late, as the matter was already in
the forms and partly run off
! erred, first, in the matter of freight
per bushel from New York to Liver
pool. For the last two or three years
it has been my luck to always pick up
and examine publications emanating
from the bureau of agriculture. wherein
| freight from New York to Liverpool
was quoted at from 215 to 31S cents per
bushel. But, happening to get hold of
a report for 1891 of the secretary of
agriculture, l was surprised to find
that the average rate for the ten years
in question was fraction more than
cents per busheL
Then | was in error as TO India's ra-
ito of coinage and the purchasing value
| of an ounce of silver, in India, when
coined into rupees. | made my calcu-
lations upon the basis of a ratio of 1515
to l and gave an ounce of silver coined
into rupees, a purchasing power in
India of Sl.S9 and put the value of a
rupee at 40 cents. | examined several
| cyclopedias, almanacs, etc, etc, and
| found variety of divergent state
! ments. Websters dictionary puts
the rupee at so cents, and the fifteen
rupee gold coin. the mohur, at $3.50
| The cyclopedias give variety of val
| ues inhering in ten or twelve differ
ent kinds of rupees Whitakers
English almanac values the rupee at
s. 10}z d., or about IS cents, but puts
the rupex, or ten rupee piece, at one
| pound. 1866, which would make the
rupee 4s.6 cents Our reform writers
! vary in their estimates of the Indian
coinage value of an ounce of silver and
the value of rupee
But / am now convinced that the Is
rupee gold coin, Q65 grains of pure
gold the mohur, is worth s7.105, and
that the true value of the rupee 165
grains pure silver is 47.S7 cents. This
! makes the ratio Is to 1 and gives the
exchange value of an ounce of coined
silver, in India. as S1.37-7 England's
ratio. however. is 14.2s, her sovereign.
or pound sterling. containing 1924. ~
grains of gold. eleven-twelfths fine.
and the shilling, or one-twentieth of
pound, contrasting sT.272T2 grains of
| silver, thirty ty-seven-fortieths fine It is
upon the basis then of El.3T to the
ounce of silver and ~ cents to the
rupee. that I have prepared another
table. in which all the figures used are
official. or reduced from official data,
except the freight rates from India to
Liverpool, which i have estimated upon
the basis of the best information within
my reach. All the figures are based
upon the bushel as the unit of computa-
tion.
Now, the theory entertained and
strenuously insisted on by silver men is
that the price of a bushel of wheat in
the United States will be found 10 be
precisely the gold cost of bushel of
wheat in India, plus the freight from
India to Liverpool. minus the freight
from New York to LIVERPOOL But. as