The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1893-11-29
SECRETARY CARLIsLE's SPEECH.
A Lucid Presentation by the Secretary
of the Treasury.

''Nir. President and Gentlemen-The sub
ject presented by the sentiment just read
is so large and involves SO many consider
atoms not only of public policy but of
public and private honor and good faith,
that l scarcely know how to respond to
it on such occasion this. where
brevity of statement will be more appro-
pirate than elaborate argument am
somewhat embarrassed, also, by the fact
that l am to talk TO an assembage of
gentlemen who, by reason of their per-
sonal experience in commercial and finan-
cial affairs, are at least in as good a po-
sition as L am to understand and appre-
currency and foresee the injurious effects
OF a departure from correct financial meth
DDS.
Money and its representatives consti-
tute the tools with which the merchant
and the banker perform their parts in the
numerous and complicated transactions
necessarily occurring IN the growth and
development of our trade at home and
abroad. 1t is not possible to do perfect
work with imperfect instruments, and if
Ii is attempted the consequences will not
fall upon you alone, but must be felt
sooner or later in every part of the land.
would be interrupted, the obligations of
contracts would be violated, and all the
evils which have invariably attended the
use of a base huctuating currency
would affiict, not the commercial and
financial classes only, but the country at
large But our commercial interests are
tend TO every quarter of the globe, and
our people buy and sell in nearly every
market of the civilized world. A very large
pat of our farmers, mechanics, and other
laboring people find constant and profitable
employment in the production and trans
pOrtation of commodities for sale and con-
sumption in other countries. and the prices
of many of our products are fixed in for
eign markets Without exception these
prices are fixed in the markets of coun-
tries having a gold standard or measure
of value either by express provision of
law or by a public policy which keeps
their silver coins equal in exchanged BILE
value to the gold coins at the legally es-
tablished ratio. The value of our trade
with the people of other countries dIIriner
the last fiscal year was more than 81, 7O0-
0O0. 600 and more than ST. 100,O00,000 of ii was
with the people of Europe, while with the
$780, OOO, 900, and with the countries of South
America, including Brazil, which has a
single gold standard, IL was only $4,000, 600
While il would be unfair to attribute this
unequal distribution of our trade with
the outside world to the character of their
!, fiscal legislation, l think it may be safely
asserted that this country could not long
maintain its present position as one Of
the most conspicuous and important MEM
bers of the great community of CONNER
ctal nations which now controls the
trade of the world, unless preserve a
monetary, system, substantially, at least
in accord with the monetary systems of
the other principal nations
A Common Basis.
r. mere can De no lhlefhdllOndl leSdi ten
der without an international agreement but
there must. from the very necessities of
the case, always be common basis upon
which bargains made and a common
currency in which balances are settled.
No one nation can determine for the others
what that basis shall be or what that cur
rency shall be- 1t may esta blish a cur
rency for itself and for the use of it's own
people in their domestic trade but the
value of that currency will be ultimately
measured and conclusively fixed by the
international standard whatever that may
be The stamp on it's coins attests their
weight and fineness, but IL adds nothing
whatever to their intrinsic value and moth
ing whatever to their interchangeable value
in the markets of the world; so that ma
tions stock of international money always
consists of its uncoined bullion and the
bullion value of its coins. 1t can not aug
ment its stock of such money to any eX-
tent whatever by overvaluing either gold
or silver in its coinage laws. nor can 1t