People's voice. [volume] (Wellington, Sumner County, Kansas) 1890-1917, 1893-09-29
Still liked.

DUH llAeu.
The editor of the Caldwell NetcS
seems unable to extract any light on
the silver-wheat question from the
somewhat elaborate elucidatiOn by
the VOICE, offered at his urgent re-
quest and since wholly ignored by
him.
Goaded into making show of de-
Tense by the VOICES pressure, he
says in his last issue:
But the main logical question
which we propOunded to the VOICE,
it has not answered at all. Admit
ting that there seems to be a close re-
latiOnShip between silver and wheat,
which may or may not be accidental,
what we want the VOICE to explain
is what produces this affinity between
these two commercial commodities,
separate and apart from all Others"
Either the gentleman did not read
fully the article which contained the
information he so much desired, else
1t is too true that there are none so
blind as those who will not see." For
the Ne1CS' benefit, and for the infor-
nation of those who may think that
what the NelCS states concerning our
answer to his query is true, we pro-
pose to reproduce here tabbreviated)
the argement we made upon that
point.
After showing cOncluSively that
the progress of the United States
toward the gold standard had been
marked by a gradual decrease in the
price of all staple products and that
the relative value of all staples with
silver had kept about the same, the
VOICE said:
ut is noticed that wheat seems to
have suffered more from this depres-
sion than any other product, unless
it be cotton, the NelCS desires the
VOICE to explain it.
The reason for this is that silver
bullion has been admitted to free
coinage into rupees in India on the
ratio Of 10 to l, or S1.37 an ounce, con-
Sequently, as silver bullion falls, it
takes less gold to get the silver to
convert into rupees to pay for wheat
or cotton. In other words, the same
number Of rupees will buy a given
quantity of cotton or wheat in India,
regardless of the gold cost of the ru-
PEGS; hence, as silver goes down, the
gold cost of wheat and cotton in In
dia is reduced, and as our surplus
wheat and cotton goes to Liverpool
in direct competition with the wheat
and cotton of India, as the gold cost
of the same products in India 90
down.
In other words, SlOng as importers
could come here and buy silver at 70
cents per ounce and take each ounce
to India and have it coined into s1.37
which would 60 as far in India tow
ard buying wheat as the same amount
Of money would 60 here, the Ameri-
can farmer was placed under the ne
cessity of selling his wheat on the
basis of giving S1.37 worth of wheat
for 20 cents, less the cost of transpOr-
tation, import duties and mintage.
And the same is true of cotton"
Then We stated the fact that we
had already quoted the Wellington
Monitor and the Kansas City Journal,
bearing out this theory, and then in
trOduced Col. William L. Trenholm,
ex-comptrOller of the currency IRE
publicanl who had been to India and
made a careful study of the currency
of that country, and who bore out
this view emphatically.
The Wellington Monitor enun-
ciated this doctrine August 20, 1890.
when it said
1.-THE new silver bill, by raising the
price of silver nearly thirty per cent
on gold basis, has increased the val
ue of the farm products of the Uni.
ted States, according to the New
York Sun, at least fifty millions of
dollars already. In the foreign mark
cts the principal competitors of the
United States on meats and bread.
stuffs have been silyer-using nations
like India and Russia. If it takes
more gold than before to get silver
with which to purchase India and
Russian wheat, the conclusion is
plain that American cereals have an
preciated in value just that much in
English ports"
We closed the editorial by saving
Now that the Indian government
has stopped the coinage of silver on
private accuont, we may, as soon as
the unsteady money market gets Qui.