Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1894-12-29

Bland for free and unlimited coin
 age. In an interview Mr. Terry explains his proposed bill as follows:
 My principal amendment in favor of silver coinage, proposed to the pending Carlisle bill, is substanti- ally this; That the Secretary of the Treasury, upon the presentation by any State of the United States of it's agents thereunto, duly authorized by it's Legislature or chief executive. Of the silver bullion requisite for that purpose, shall coin the same into silver dollars, of the weight of 4l29 grains troy, of standard Silver. as provided by the act of January IS. 1887; provided, that there shaiI not be coined for any one State. in any one year, q greater number of silver dollars than the number of it's popu lation, as shown by the last Federal census. Said coinage shall be free of any seigniorage to the the United States Government, or cost of mint age, and when so coined shall be turned into the Treasury of the State for which coined; and said coin, together with all silver dollars heretofore coined by the United States of like weight and fineness. shall be legal tender for all debts and dues, public and private.
 ''lt will be remembered that one of the chief arguments of the op- ponents of silver coinage is that it will simply enure to the benefit of the mine owners and holders of silver bullion, who would take to the United States Treasury silver bul. lion of the market value of not more than o0 or 50 cents and have the same coined into a dollar or 100 cents, thereby realizing a profit of from 40 to 90 0cents upon each dollar coined. The proposed amendment obYiates that objection and knocks the bottom out of that stock in trade argument of the gold men. for under this proposition the profit or difference between the market value and coinage value of the bullion will ennre to the benefit of the people of the several States having such bull lion coined.
 It will be observed that Mr. Terry does not tell us how the parity is to be maintained for the present.
 but in course of time, he seems to think, under the provisions of his bill, there would be such de- mand for silver among the States as to cause the price of silver to reach siz9 per ounce, at which point the market and coinage value would be the same and the parity of gold and silver would then be reached.
 All of this sounds very well, but We very much doubt if it would prove of any practical value. IfI every State in the Union would pur- chase silver bullion and have it coined at the hints under the pro- visions of this biil. it might be pos sible that silver would reach price, as Mr Terry claims, where the mar ket and coinage value would be the same. But We doubt it. A few of the Southern and Western States might avail themselves of the priv ileges of Mr. Terry's bill, but the Eastern and many of the North ern states never; aud unless there was sufficient demand created by the states to bring the market value of silver up to the coinage value, the experiment in time would involve fIis country in one of the greatest panics the world has ever witnessed.
 However, Mir. Terry's proposition is not without merit, and it posses ses a great advantage over the ad- yocates of free and unlimited coin age in that it would prevent foreign nations from dumping upon us their surplus silver bullion. The proposition for free and unlimited coinage of the silver of the world by the United States at the present ratio, without an international agreement or some safeguards of legislation, as expressed by the Ma tional Democratic platform, would unquestionably reduce this govern ment to silver basis and involve the country in financial ruin and disaster