The Goodland republic. [volume] (Goodland, Kan.) 1891-1907, 1894-05-04
FINANCIAL IMPossIBIL1T1Es.

FINANCIAL IMPOssIBILITIES.
There are things as impossible in the
financial world as in the material
world One of these is the accomplish
ment of what it is said will be recon-
mended to congress by the president
and his secretary of the treasury,
namely, bill to provide, on the one
hand, for coming the silver seigniorage
now in the treasury in order to increase
the supply of currency to keep up
prices and stimulate business, and on
the other hand, to sell bonds to buy
gold in order to maintain the gold
standard. These two things can no
more be done at the same time than
one can raise himself from the ground
by his boot straps.
We are a debtor nation, and besides
paying for what we import we must
pay something like million dollars
day as interest on debts held abroad,
to say nothing of the gold otherwise
expended in foreign countries. These
sums must all be paid with commodi-
ties 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 in
stead of buying elsewhere, and to buy
enough more than they sell us to cover
interest and other payments abroad.
If 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 cur
rency 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 logic of this condition, his
secretary, one would think, ought to
see the condition 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 "after US the
deluge." What I have said of coming
the seigniorage applies with greater
force to the issue of redeemabIe bank
notes, or of any other form of currency
to act on prices. How ridiculous then
to propose, while attempting to main
tain the single gold standard TO repeal
the state bank tax and food the coun-
try with bank currency redeemable in
goldl If the basis of our money sys-
tenn were bimetallic the case would be
very different, 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 organiza-
tions, keep up prices and wages in the
protected and organized industries.
Wheat at so cents a bushel and cot
ton at cents a pound to the farmer
and planter do not afford to exceed 80
cents 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 people producing at 81 day
exchange their products with the other
half who get but 80 cents dayP If one
man cannot exchange the products of
his labor at 50 a day evenly for the pro-
duct Of another, at 90 cents a day. a
thousand, or q million; or ten millions
cannot. In order to enable one man to
exchange the'products of his labor at 81
a day with those earning but. so cents a
day, he must find four such men to ex-
change with, or he must limit his own
labor to zone day. out of four, if he
would keep his. wages up to S.
By the same Law, in order that one
class may produce at higher wages and
keep themselves. employed, such class
must have a much larger number work
ing in other fields at lower wages. But
this disparity in tie nunbersof workers
in different lines of industry can only
be permanently secured by restricting
the number of persons allowed to enter
such field-in other words by monopoly
Of labor as we'll as Of capital. Such is
the law of the equalization of wages
and prices. :ss- .--i:zs.
Is it not plain, then, that ia going to.
a gold basis there must be asscaling
down OF wages IN all industries and a
ruduction Of all earnings. for earnings
are but the product Of labor and time.
The. railways OF. the country are nov
struggling to keep up their earnings.
and at the same time they try to con-
tinue the old scale Of wages. This can
10 more be lone on our railways than
in our industries generally. Indeed.