New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1893-05-01
NOT MICH REMEDY.

During the last week the remedies which the
Administration proposes for financial difficulties
have been fully set forth by President
ClcveandS letter and Secretary Carlislcs re-
marks to bankers. One has only to look at
quotations and current events to perceive that
the business world does not consider these
remedies adequate. The pledge that all legal
tender notes shall he redeemed in gold is Ct course
heartily approved. But no one supposed that
it would do away with the trouble and danger
which existed before payments in silver were
suggested. Indeed, that step was contemplated
only as a means of leSsening demands which II
was feared the Treasury might not be able 10
meet. The gold reserve has gone down below
500, 600, 600. and the panic which some
bankers so freely predicted has not come, which
is itself reassuring fact. Yet the causes Of
disturbance have not been removed
Secretary Carisle's statement was considered
inadequate principally because he showed no
practical way of removing those difficulties.
1t j. true he declared that the Silver Purchase
law should be Iepealed-and there most bank
ers agree with him-but his very statement
was a virtual admission that this could
not be done in the present temper of Congress.
If it could, why does not the President call an
extra session? The Secretary further sug-
gested that the miners Of silver. and the con-
>tituents of Southern and Western Congress
men, must first be brought TO see the evil eff
fectS Of the present law upon their own business
interests This seems to mean that the evil ct-
feels are to be permitted to run Until they are
sufficiently appreciated This may be the only
way to overcome the dangerous tendencies OF
the Democratic majority but it is not encour-
aging to business men to reflect that they must
bear the expo nse Of educating Democratic Con-
gress. Mr. Carlisle holds that an issue OF bonds
would be only temporary remedy, and would
in the end retald efforts to repeal the silver
law. These objections TIE TRIBUNE has
urged, with the broader consideration that any
and every effort of the Administration to pre-
vent evil or to get any good solution of the cur
iency question would be INSTRUCTED by the hos
tity which a sale Of bonds would excite. and
by the fictitious boom in prices which it might
produce In this line of reasoning the Secre-
tary is right and the decision not to issue bond,
unless as a last resOlt can be thoroughly com
mended.
But the only remedy, or semblance Of
remedy, WHICH inc ScCItldlI W nave
suggested is that the evils of the present status
about silver should be brought home to the per
sonal experience Of the people until they should
be ready to repeal the Sherman law. This as
sumes first. that severe strngency in money
and depression in business would be attributed
by the people to the Sherman law, and, second,
that the repeal of that law would prove remedy.
The fact is that Secretary Carlisle's Demo
cratic friends at the West and South are already
asserting with much passion that refusal to
give the country freq coinage is the real cause
of all the trouble, and that the President could
set everything right by calling an extra session
and signing free coinage act What assurance
has the Secretary that continued disturbance will
not intensity this feeling and make it more gen.
eral among Democrats? Then as to the repeal
of the Sherman law that alone would revive the
Bland Coinage act, compelling coinage of So
100000 Per month, and permitting coinage OF
S4. OOO,0 900 per month, with issues of silver
certificates against all silver coined, and would
at the same time repeal the one invaluable dec
laraton or pledge which President Cleveland
has just quoted as requiring the redemption of
Treasury notes in gold.
The root of the difficulty is the belief that
the Democratic party wants free coinage will
fight for it in spite of President Cleveland and
will get that if it can. This party being in
power, gold goes out, whereas in October gold
was coming in. And this difficulty is i'm
mensely increased by the fact that a prostra-
ton of industries through tariff reconstruction
is threatened which in the judgment of some
most competent Democrats would leave the
Government without the revenue necessary for
its expenditures. The notion that such diff
culties can be overcome by striving for repeal
of the Sherman law is like an attempt to sink
the British cruiser Blake with porgun.