The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1894-08-29

Ten pOuUGS at Olic bIIie dIO hWcuty
| pounds at another time, the difference
in price resulting from the difference
in the amount Of money in the king
| dom. If man give his obligation tt
another for one thousand bushels OF
corn and the government should alter
ward change the bushel measure 50 as
to require 1l2 pounds Instead OF So tC
the bushel TO discharge the obligation
paying the enlarged bushels would
! place upon the debtor a burden be ney
er contracted for and give to the credl
tor an advantage that he was not en-
titled to receive. The principle is not
different when the obligation is ex-
pressed II dollars A striking example
of this unearned profit appears upon in
vesligation of the public debt
of the United States. That
debt in 1865 amounted to S2,S0o, ,000, ,00C
and 100000 bales of cotton
would have paid the entire debt. We
have paid Oh the debt in principal, in
terest and premium more than S5,0O0,.
OOOOOO. Wehave reduced the priocl-
pal to $685. 100000. Today the balance
due calls tor more cotton, more flour,
more labor and sacrifice than the entire
debt would have com manded n 1865.
The burden has grown no lighter.
Oae of the most eminent bimetalliStS
of the country in the early part OF
1873, before the United States and Ger
many demonetizsd silver, wrote that
in case any country OF Importance
adopted the gold basis, persistent de-
cline would set in in the prices of COM
modities, money would appreciate;
that times would grow harder, spirit
Of unrest and dissatisfaction would
manifest itself and would result IN
strikes, idle Workingmen seeking EN-
ployment, e.. The history of the past
twenty years could be no more cor
rectly written. This prediction was
followed by another, in almost the
same paragraph to this effect: Various
causes will be assigned such as, i'm
proved machinery, new Inventions,
and over productions; some will also
claim that falling price and hard times
have resulted from local causes, but
few people will realiZs that the true
cause of the appreciation Of money and
the depreciation of property. Our own
experience and observation that all
these causes have been laid hold OF
during the last few years.
The remedy, however, is the lmpor.
tant question. The Democratic party
both by its platform ana by It's tradl-
ton is pledged to the restoration Of
silver to the mints. That platform
says: "We hold TO the use of both gold
and silver as the standard money OF the
country, and to the coinage of both
gold and silver without discriminating
against either metal or charge for mint.
age" At the time Of the adoption OF
this platform in the House of Repre-
ssntatiyes of the United States seven
representatives to one had voted in ia.
vor of free silver and eight to one in
the senate.
Whenever q proposition IS made to
restore silver tc the mints various OBJ
jections are urged against it. For in.
stance, some people claim that the in
trinsic value OF the silver in a dollar is
not worth dollar. There IS no such
thing as intrinsic value. Intrinsic
means to lie in. Silver has properties,
such as hardness, which accompany 1t
wherever il goes. Value IS not i prop
erty; value is conception of the mind,
it is something that resides in the mind
of the person and not in the object
sought. If a msn was on an unlnhao-
tied island and had no hope Of ever get
ting CT he would prefer buShel OF
wheat to a bushel Of gold. So what
the intrinsic value advocates really
mean is commercial value. The COM
mercial value of gold or silver is alwavs
equal, at least to the coinage value. II
the mintS Of the United States were
open today for the coinage of silver at
the rate of 4l2115 grains to the 81, that
would be its Value for all other pur-
poses, because if man had silver
enough at that rate TO coin one hun
dred silver dollars, that silver could not
be purchased for less than one hundred
dollars, for so long as the purchaser did
not offer the owner as many dollars as
the silver could coin the owner would
just make dollars out oft.
There has never been time when
the commercial value of money metal
fell below the coinage value when the
mints were open to 1t. Twelve OF the
ablest men in Great Britain after a
most thorough investigation reported
to the British government that France
had kept the commercial value all over
the world at 151a to for period OF
seventy years, and that France, Eog-
LAND, Germany, United States, or any
other leading country could main
tain the value Of silver at
whatever rates it might es.
tablish. If value is conception OF the
mind, 1t may be asked whether it can
be created by law. No it can not. De.
mand, however, may be created by law,
and that makes the value. To illnS
trate, suppose the United States gov
ernment should prohibit by law the
use of any kind OF horses IN this coun-
try except yellow horses. the result OF
such legislation would be to destroy the
demand for all other kind of horses
and their value would go down. On
the other hand there would be a largely
increased demand for the yellow horses
That is precisely what the United States
and other countries have done when
they have declared by law that the peo.
pie could only use the yellow metal
for money.
It is to be observed that ali reference;
to the repeal fall in price Of silver never
90 back on 1873 when its value was de-
stroyed by legislation. To put white
horses on an equality with yellow
horses, the law prohibiting the use of
white horses must be repealed. To pu'
silver on parity with gold, the law
pro libitlng its use as money must be
repealed. Another objection urged to
the coinage of silver is its cost of pro,
duction. a few silver mines have
yielded their owners fabulous fortune!
and in those rare Instances, Et
doubt, silver has been mined at small
cost, bat that proves nothing, for some
farmer fortunately circumstanced may
produce corn at q very low cost, bu;
that would not prove that all farmer;
in the United States produce corn a
the same price. These alleged statistics
of the cheap production OF silver are
misleading, because they do not take
into account the tens OF thousands OF
ci}var minors yUhoaro ypnrtiDp Al loss