The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1895-05-24

|
years and embraced all the occupations
in which our people were engaged, and
the fact, unanimously found, was that,
although eighteen years had elapsed since
| the silver legislation,
THE WAGES OF LABOR
were higher than in 1872 or 1878. Wages
were found to be nearly 81 per cent.
higher than in 1860, which was thirteen
years before the silver legislation, and
more than eight per cent higher than in
1873, when that legislation was adopted.
The argument that the reduction of
| prices is due to the appreciation of gold
is necessarily based upon the further as
sumptions that the legislation in regard
to silver has produced scarcity of re-
demption or metallic money in the world,
and that prices are fixed and regulated by
the amount of such money in circulation,
or. available for circulation. Neither of
these assumptions is justified by the facts.
The most. exhaustive efforts have been
made from time to time by the Treasury
! Department, through the Director of the
Mint, by careful examinations of the
monetary statistics of other countries,
by correspondence with our diplomatic
and consular representatives abroad and
with foreign financial authorities, and
otherwise, to ascertain the actual amount
| OF gold and silver used as money in the
world, and the result shows that there is
now more gold and silver in the aggre
| gate, and more of each one of them, in
use as full legal tender money than there
ever was at any other time in the history
of the worl d. The gold in use as money
amount to So, 965, 900, 900, the full legal
tender silver amounts to $3, 435 800, 000
and the limited legal-tender silver
amounts to $619, &c., 600. The policy of
maintaining, or rather attempting to
maintain, the so-called double standard
never succeeded in keeping SO large an
amount of full legal-tender silver in cir
culation in the world as there is at this
time, and one of the principle reasons for
this is that the effect of the policy was to
drive first the coins of one metal and
then the coins of the other into the Golfers
OF the hoarders on into the meltlng-pots
| because they were undervalued in the
coinage laws and would not remain in
use as money.
attach very little Importance to the
per capita argument because the amount
of currency required in country depends
mainly upon the volume of business to be
| transacted and the customs of the people
| in conducting their exchanges, and not
at all upon the number of men, women,
and children residing in it, but, as there
are a great many who believe that the
circulation should be regulated by the
census returns it may be worth while TO
state that the production of gold alone in
| 1890 and it is much larger now-was
nearly two and a half times greater than
the average annual production of gold
and silver both during the decade which
closed with the year 1900. In 1900 the
population of all the countries in Europe
and America was 1877, 500, S95, and the
1 production of both gold and silver
amounted to $24 40 for every hundred in
habitants, while in 1900 the population of
the same countries was 1866, 7S9, 341, and
| the production of gold alone was $11S-
S49, 600, which amounted to $25 46 for
every hundred Inhabitants, or ninety
| five cents more for each hundred people
than was furnished by both metals during
each year in the former decade. In.1S94 the
population of these countries was 4S5, $780,,
| 641, and the production of gold alone was
1857, 22S, 600, being 1872 Al for each hundred
Inhabitants, or 81. 80 more for each hun
bred people than the total of both metals
during the last decade of the last century.
| IT, therefore the people of Europe and
America had used as money all the
gold and all the silver annually produced
| in the world one hundred years ago, they
would not have received as large a per
capita addition to their stock of money as
they would receive now by adding the
gold alone. In view of these facts, / sub
NIT that the silver legislation of 1871,
1878, and 1876 has not diminished the
worlds
| SUPPLY OF METALLIC MONEYS
as compared with former times and pre-
vented the single gold-standard countries
| from making as great an annual addition
to their stock of metallic currency.
Official monetary statistics show that
/ i,,t no dcta a,1 t,ia Of
world the stocks of money are much
rger per capita than in the silver stand
ard countries. Taking the large gold
standard countries and the large silver
standard countries, it appears that in
1894 the stock of money in the United
States was over $25 per capita, in the
United Kingdom nearly $50, and in
Germany nearly $40, while in Mexico the
per capita was 81. II, in Russia and Fin
land S. 80, and in China 49, 26 The gold
standard countries use large amounts Of
silver as money, but the silver standard
countries use no gold as money, and can
not do so for the reasons l have already
endeavored to explain. But gentlemen,
for the reason already stated, the COM
mercial nations of the world do not now
require the same proportion of metallic
money in the transaction of their bust
ness that they required a few centuries
ago, or even one century ago. Credit has
| been vastly extended ana the Use Oh paper
in the form of notes, checks, and bills
has almost entirely displaced metallic
money in the daily business of the people
and as long as these forms of credit are
kept equal in value to the metallic stand
ard, the effect upon the prices of com
modities is precisely the same as if the
whole volume of circulation consisted of
standard coin, for, as long as equality in
their value can be maintained the paper
representatives Of the dollar perform ex-
actly the same office in the exchange of
commodities that gold dollars themselves
would PERFORM but if this equality is
destroyed, the paper is discredited, its
1 purchasing power is diminished, and the
people have no longer a stable measure of
value.
! One of the most effective arguments
made by the advocates of free coinage, in
some parts of the country at least, is that
the people are in debt and that it is the
duty of the Government to relieve them
by such legislation as will enable them to
procure cheap money for the purpose of
discharging their obligations, and in sup
port of this argument the most exagger-
ated statements are made as to the de-
pressed and suffering condition of our
f,,r and o+J