The Mt. Sterling advocate. (Mt. Sterling, Ky.) 1890-current, 1894-03-27
The SeiqniOrage Bill Explained

Mr.. Bland last Tuesday gave thu
Washington City correspondents OF {
st. Louis Daily the following explana
ton of his silver bill:
To understand what the seignioragt
means, it is necessary to go into the
case somewhat in detail. There il
bullion enough on hand purchased
under the Sherman act, to coin $780,
100000 of standard silver dollars.
There are $l25,0000O0 of Sherman
notes to be redeemed, so that when
the whole amount of the bullion shall
he coined, there will be 55,000,000
dollars, in round numbers, over and
above the $125,000.OO0 treasury notes.
This surplus of $55,000,000 is called
The gain, or seigniorage, and the first
section Of the bill provides to utilize
this gain or seigniorage Immediately
in the payment fpublic expenditures,
leaving $l25,000,000 as redemption
fund for the Sherman notes. These
Sherman notes, are redeemed in gold
ar silver coin, under the Sherman law,
and the discretion has been exercised
by the redemption Of the notes in gold
only.
In order to avoid this, the second
section of the bill provides that after
The coinage of the seigniorage the re-
mainder of the bullion shall be coined
10 redeem the Sherman notes, and as
fast as the bullion shall be coined to
L deem the Sherman notes, and held
IN the treasury for the redemption of
the notes, when the notes become the
property of the government, they shall
not be reissued, but cancelled and de-
stroyed, and the silver certificates rep
resenting silver dollars alone shall lie
issued in the place of the Sherman
notes. This in the course of time will
convert all of the Sherman notes into
circulating medium composed
of the silver dollar or the
silver certificate, and thus prevent
these notes from being presented to
the treasury and gold paid out upon
them. The gold standard advocates
object to this because of its putting
silver into circulation in place of gold
that is, silver certificates in place of
gold notes-and because it adds
to the silver circulation of the country
$lS0,000,000 in excess of what we
have now.
The reporter adds: This is the
first full explanation of the second |
section of the bill that has been made,
and If the bill is vetoed it will be on
the second rather than on the first
section. AS stated before, however,
there is reason to believe that the
president has not vet made up his
mind what he will do with il. For
party purposes, good many men who
are not friends of silver, are urging
the president at this time to approve,
in order that he should convince the
country that he is not an enemy of
silver, per Sc, but only opposed to
general silver coinage on the ground
hat it would be disturbing TO the
financial interest of the country. and
hat silver could not be maintained on
| parity with gold without an inter-
lational conference. A majority Of
he people here are still inclined to the
belief that he will approve the bill,
md yet nobody here can say with
or even with a basis for
what the president will dc.
The Rural New Yorker says the
Use OF rye as green manure is almost
llways disappointing. There is us
Tally heavy growth to plow under,
nut 1t seems to fail 10 give the value I,
should.