The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-04-25
ON THE ROAD TO RUIN
'1e CoUNTRY's PREDlcAMeNT mr..
ocH6EO BY THE SILVER CHIEF

TINE coUNTRY's PRED,cAMen1 re-
scR'6E0 BY THE SILVER CHIEF.
Essoene Warner Of the America, t,;,n
oaAic League Says That the R.-..;, -.
10 Silver seisniorage Il an Ab.n-d,+v
Wages md Prices.
1here are things as impossible in the
PnanclA world as in the material world
o9e OF these is the accomplishment
OF wnat it is said will be recommended
70 congress by the president and his sec-
!esazy OF the treasury-namelv. a hill
to provide, on the one hand. for co;n;no
me silver seigniorage now in the treas.
NY In order to increase the supply Of
currency. to keep up prices and stimu-
iaee business, and, on the other hand.
20 cell bonds to buy gold to maintain
the gold standard.
These two things can no more be done
ee the same time than one can raise
himself from the ground by his boot
straps.
we are debtor nation, and besides
paying for what we import we must
pay something like 81, 900, 900 day as
interest ON debts held abroad. to saw
nothing Of the gold otherwise expended
IN foreign countries. These sums must
all be paid with commodities or with
gold The only way we can pay with
commodities is to keep prices Of the
things we export low enough to induce
other countries to buy Of Us instead of
buying elsewhere, and to buy enough
more than they sell US to cover interest
and the payments abroad.
II by increasing the volume of cur
rency prices are raised so that exports
are checked, then gold must and will go
out OF the country to pay balances. The
situation, then, is this: More currency
to raise prices and send gold out of the
country; more bonds to buy the gold
back How long can that go on? If the
president is impervious to the facts and
tho logic OF this condition, his secreta-
II. one would think, ought to see the
situation he is putting the country in
OF course we can for time pay in
terest and balances with new bonds, but
that is the policy of latter us the del
uge" What have said of coming the
seigniorage applies with greater force to
the issue Of redeemable bank notes or Of
any other form Of currency to act on
prices How ridiculous, then, to pro-
pose. while attempting to maintain the
single gold standard, to repeal the state
bank tax and flood the country with
bank currency redeemable in goldl If
the basis of our money system were BIZ
metallic, the case would be very differ
ent, but the discussion of that subject
Is not the object of this paper.
Another one of the impossibilities we
are trying to achieve is to keep down
prices Of all articles of export, chiefly
agricultural products, in order with
such products to pay debts abroad and
keep gold enough here to maintain the
gold standard, and at the same time by
tariffs, trusts and labor organizations
keep up prices and wages in the protect
ed and organized industries
Wheat at 30 cents bushel and cotton
at 6 cents a pound to the farmer and
planter do not afford to exceed SO cents
a day for agricultural labor, and as
wages and prices in this field of labor
must be kept down in order to enable us
to export what is necessary to pay for
imports and for interest due abroad it
comes at last to this: Can half the peo-
pie producing at So day exchange
their products with the other half who
get but so cents day? If one man can
not exchange the product Of his labor at
% day evenly for the product of an
other at 80 cents day, thousand, or
million, or ten millions cannot.
In order to enable one man to ex-
change the products Of his labor at s. a
day with those earning but 80 cents a
day he must find four such men to ex-
change with, or he must limit his
own labor to one day out of four if he
would keep his wages up to So. By the
same law, in order that one class may
produce at higher wages and keep them
selves employed, such class must have
much larger number working in other
fields at lower wages. But this dispar-
ity in the number Of workers in differ
ent lines of industry can only be per-
manently secured by restricting the
number Of persons allowed to enter such
fields-in other words, by monopoly of
labor as we'll as Of capital. Such is the
law of the equalization of wages and
prices.
! Is it not plain, then, that in going to
. gold basis there must be a scaling
down of wages in all industries and a
reduction of all earnings, for earnings
are but the product Of wages and time?
The railways of the country are now
Struggling to keep up their earnings,
and at the same time they try to con-
tinue the old scale of wages This can
no more be done ON our railways than
In our industries generally-indeed
much less, because railways are no more
protected by tariffs than agriculture is.
The bonded debts of railroads will re-
main the same whether our money stand
ard is gold alone or is bimetallic, but
rates and earnings must 60 down with
everything else and with them the wages
of labor. Railways can no more resist
this law than they can the law Of gravi
~. Gold prices are not only low prices,
but necessarily receding prices, for gold