The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-09-18

ing countries of the West will almost as
suredly be transferred to the silver cOun-
tries of the East, which, with their mil
lion of Woodworking and. effective la
borers at low wages, and their inexhaus-
tible supplies of fuel and raw materials,
will force their productions upon the mar
kets Of the world to the exclusion of those
from other sources and the utter impov-
erishment of the gold-using nations
GOLD MAKES US POOR.
But there is scarcely any use of pro-
ducing further testimony. 1t is hardly
necessary to go into the subject of the
enormous stimulus to the expectation of
wheat from India which followed the ap-
probation of gold, and which was. only
arrested when the Indian Council made
the blunder of closing the minis to the
coinage of the silver rupee. Nor need the
impetus given to wheat culture in Ar
gentine by the premium on gold and its
Injurious effects upon the American farm
err, forced at an inopportune time to meet
a new competitor, be dwelt upon. If the
evidence already aduced is not. sufficient
to show that silver-using countries are in
hnitely more prosperous than those ad-
herring to the gold standard, then state
ments of facts have no value. In the
preceding paragraphs it has been shown
conclusively that China, India, Japan,
Russia and Mexico, are all progressing in
dustrially, and that whatever inconven-
fence the debtor silver countries may suf-
fer, from being compelled to mete the in
terest on obligations incurred before gold
became so greatly appreciated, they are
largely offset by the stimulus given that
the purchasing power of the money used
by the people has not materially changed
except so far as imported products are
concerned. Or to put it more clearly, in
silver-using countries an ounce OF silver
will purchase as many of the necessaries
of life now as it would twenty years ago,
fact that ought to conclusively settle
the contention whether gold has appre-
ciated or silver deprecated in value in
favor of the first assumption.
THE FALL OF PRICES.
That the appreciation of gold has work
ed Western nations an incalculable in
jury is as obvious as that the stability of
silver has helped silver countries. The
constant fall of prices in gold standard
countries has paralyzed all enterprise.
Capital shrinks from anything so hazard
Gus as manufacturing goods for falling
market, and agriculture is pursued only
because farmers must live and work,
their occupation. Debtors are harrassed
to meet obligations incurred when the
standard was composed of both metals
and forced into bankruptcy, and all be-
cause foolish men persist in the extraor-
binary delusion that commerce can eX-
pand with a contracting money. Some
day the Boston Herald and papers of its
way of thinking will awake to the fact
that thew have been wasting their pity
when commissioning the condition of sill.
ver-using peoples and will discern, per-
haps too late, that it is we who have made
fools of ourselves in selecting a scarce
medium of exchange, and that those who
concluded that silver, which had served
the uses of man for thousands of years,
was a proper money metal, have more
financial wisdom than gold-using peo-
pies, even though the latter are ION a
higher plane of civilization"
JOHN P. YOUNG.