The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1894-10-23

49,
a billion marks face value) in thalers,
small silver pieces. nickel and copper
money, whose bullion value in all
hardly exceeds 400 million marks. This
condition gives rise to a double danger
viz: That our monetary system may
break down at critical times, and that
counterfeit full legal tender silver
coins may be circulated, indistinguish-
able from those struck at the public
mints, a process, at the present low
gold price of silver, affording counter
letters enormous profits. 1t is known
that vast counterfeit issues are already
in circulation in other countries.
IL. All these evils lead every now
and then to crises, which disturb bust
ness by raising rates Of discount, re-
sorted to in order to protect. gold,
which all banks anxiously do, for the
most part Withdrawing it from com
merce by an embargo.
10. Beyond all question we have to
anticipate a still more acute develop
ment of these evils. All the silver
countries must try to place themselves
on the gold basis if Germany and the
rest of the great powers hold fast there
to. Modern commerce cannot perma-
nently endure a difference in basal
moneys, the separation of the world
into gold countries and silver countries.
But any further extension of the gold
system must, as Goschen predicted so
early as 1878, lead to a business crisis
such as the world has never yet passed
through.
ADVANTAGES FROM RECONCILIATION OF
SILVER.
III. Nothing but a restitUti o of sill
yer to it's former coequality with gold
as a monetary metal can bring the
needed relief.
We promise ourselves the following
benign results in case of such restitu-
ton:
L. The persistent fall of general prices
would cease, the prices of all products
would again be determined in a normal
way, and agriculture and other indus.
tries would flourish anew.
Peoples fears touching money depre-
citation, imitation, aud injury to credit
ore, suppOsing silver to be restored,
rest upon exa~ggerations International
free coinage would at most leave barely
enough excess of gold and silver over
the industrial demand to keep pace
with the increase of business and popu-
lation and with the CONSTANT addition
of new countries to the civilized por-
ton of the world. The precious metal
production with which we now have
to reckon is, in fact, proportionally to
the various demands which would be
made upon it, very much less than
that of the f1fties and the sixties, which
then brought rich economic blessing
and did no injury whatever.
9. When prices rise, both the impulse
to undertake industrial enterprisesand
the rate of interest also rise, working
an advantage to capital which fully
makes good any possible diminution in
the purchasing power of money. Pub
lie income swells, permitting an ad
vance in the salaries of officials. A
fourishing condition of general indus,
try enhances the demand for labor and
betters the situation of the laboring
classes.
3 Were 1T possible to make specie
payments in silver as well as in gold,
it would be easier for countries with
deprecated paper money to regulate
their finances. Many can never &C
complish this in any other way. Varia-
tions in paper money values would
then no longer curse commerce; the
products of German industry would be
in vast amounts exports to silver lands
EAST Asia, Mexico, South America)
and at the same time the ability of our
agricultural population to buy goods
would be restored.
4, A period of general advance in
material prosperity would rob OF all
Significance the agrarian, anti Semitic
and Socialist Democrat movements of
agitators, and prevent the mutual bit
ternes5 of our political factions from
becoming, as it now threatens to be-
come, more acute.
5 Instead of the separate measures
of value now actually in use by the
worlds commerce, gold alone in some
countries and silver alone in others,
there would be a single measure of
value for all mankind, that secured
through gold and silver together by
rendering invariable their values rela-