The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1893-07-14
FROM AN INDEPENDENT STAND
POINT.

seemed bad enough before, WaS
made worse on Thursday Of last
week by the announcement that
.he Indian council-that is, the
administrative body in India thro'
which England imposes her policies
upon the country-had closed the
mints to silver and put the finances
of India upon a gold basis. The
significance of this act lies i'll the
fact that India has been the back
bone of silver as a money metal.
Her change of policy, therefore,
removes the main prop of silver,
and leaves the United States sup
ported only by Mexico and half a
dozen small South American and
Asiatic countries in the effort to
hold up the white metal toits nat
ural and proper place i'll the worlds
fiscal system. The demonstration
of silver by India could not have
come at a worse time for the Uni
ted States. 1t finds us i'll the
throes of panic largely the con-
sequence of an effort to uphold sill
yer; and to situation already very
serious it has added new element
of alarm. All this was fully un-
depstood by the English financiers
who are, of course, the real authors
of the Indian policy, and who
have purposely promulgated that
policy at a time nicely calculated
. to demoralize the financial market
in the United States.
The basis of the present agita-
ton, the reason why money is
tight and the primary cause OF
dull markets and low prices, is
nothing more nor less than the fear
that we shall be forced from gold
to silver basis; that is, that our
government will find itself Unable
to meet its obligations in gold coin
of which it has but little, and thus
be obliged to pay in silver coin Of
which it has much. The suspen-
sion of gold payments by the
treasury would in effect displace
gold as the measure of values il
the United States and substitute {
silver as the measure of value
Now, the difference between the
actual bullion value of the gold
dollar and the actual bullion value
of the silver dollar is approximate
Jy 40 cents, and the change from
the yellow to the white standard
if it should in fact come about
would involve the wiping out o
two-fifths of all the property of the
country which is owned in the form
of credits. This would be the in
evitable consequence of adopting
the silver 60 cent dollar in place o
the 1OO-cent gold dollar. Those
who are creditors-that is, holders
of obligations in the form of gov
eminent paper, stocks, bonds, GER
tifieates Of deposit, notes, insur
= ance policies, bills receivable, OF
any orall of the ten thousand IN
tangible forms which property
takes under our system-will read
lily comprehend what this woult
imply. 1t would, in fact, scale
down all property in the form o
credits of whatever kind or char
acter by at least two fifths 1t i;
the fear of this scaling down
which is back of the uncertainty
that just now fills the air; it is the
fear of this scaling down which
makes those who have gold hest.
tate to exchange it for credits upon
which they may be able to collect
two-fifths of the value of the gold
given for them. The current sun
certainty" means doubt as to the
ability of the government to keep
10 the present gold Standard; and
the current ssdistrust" means doubt
of the stability of values as they
stand adjusted to the gold stand.
ard. This is the secret, the whole
of the reason, why there is a panic