The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-05-24

| bul we 10 IlOI IlIlu that the
prices of all things have been reduced
What L Have Found.
In 1892 and part of '93 1 had the
honor to serve on a subcommittee
charged by the Senate of the United
States with the duty of ascertainins
the course of prices and wages of labor
Tor as long a period as authentic rec
ordS would enable us to embrace in our
investigation. For the purposes of com
par1son the prices of commodities and
the wages of labor in the year 1866
were adopted as the standard, because
there We're no great financial or other
disturbances during that year and
business was in a normal condition in
all parts of the country. The commit
! tee selected 1872 articles, which consti-
tuted the bulk of the consumption and
| expenditures of the people. It was
found that the prices of articles used
for food, taking them altogether, had
fallen less than 10 per cent since 1872,
while the prices of clothes and clothing
mad fallen 80 per cent, fuel and light
nearly "a per cent, metals and nipple
ments 50 per cent, lumber and building
materials nearly 80 per cent, drugs and
chemicals 81 per cent, house furnishing
goods u per cent, and miscellaneous
articles 10 per cent. The prices for the
/ IL
were represented by 100. When this
investigation was made, in the 9Gs,
articles of food stood at 1889, or nearly
per cent higher than in 1860; clothes
and clothing at 81, fuel and lighting
at 81, metals and implements 749, lum-
Der and house building materials at
l223, drugs and chemicals at S6.3,
house furnishing goods 701, and mis-
ceilaneouS articles at 951. The prices
in1 20 IA -
farms, gardens, orchards and dairieS
were about 4 per cent higher than in
1860, long before the silver legislation
now complained of; the fall in the
prices of these farm products since the
year 1873 has been much less than in
the fall in the prices of commodities
the farmers have to buy, and the re-
auctions in prices have not been uni
form, and therefore cannot be attribu-
ted to one cause-to the appreciation
of gold, for instance Notwithstanding
the great increase in the production
of cotton and wheat, here and in other
countries, and the consequent decline
in their prices, a given quality of either
of them will now purchase in our mar
kets and in the markets abroad a
larger share of many other useful COM
modttfeS than it would have purchased
in 1873, so that, i'm fact, as compared
with many other things, the values of
cotton and wheat have appreciated.
The only thing which has been less
affected by the changes in the relation
between supply and demand, by i'm
provementS in the methods of produc-
ton and distribution and by the other
influences which produce fluctuations
In prices of commodities generally, is
labor, and it is by far the most import
ant single source of income possessed
by our people, a much larger amount
being expended every year in the pay
ment of wages than for any other one
purpose. If the alleged depreciation of
gold alone has caused a reduction of
prices, the wages of labor, the great
est commodity in the market, should
have fallen since 1873; but exactly the
reverse is true. The investigation
found wages nearly 81 per cent higher
than in 1860, thirteen years before the
silver legislation, and more than per
cent higher than in 1873, when that
legislation was adopted.
Double Standard.
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 circulation as
there is at the present time, and one
of the principal reasons for this is that
the effect of the policy was 10 drive
first the coins of the other into the
Golfers of the hoarders or into the
melting pots, because they were I'M
dervalued in the coinage laws and
would not remain in use as money.
Official monetary statistics snow that
in the gold standard countries of the
world the stocks of money are much
larger per capita than in the silver
standard countries. In 1894 the ST.
of money in the United States was
over $25 per capita, in the United
nearly $50, and in Germany
nearly $40, while in Mexico the per
capita was SAT-; in Russia and Fin
land 1892, and in China 1926. The gold
standard countries use large amounts
of silver as money, but the silver STAN
dard countries use no gold as money,
and cannot do so for the reasons L
have endeavored to explain. But the
commercial nations of the world do
not require The same proportion of
metallic money in the transaction of
their business that they required CEN
fury ago. Credit has been vastly eX-
tended and the use of paper in the
form of notes, checks and bills has al
most 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 |
standard the effect upon the prices of |
is precisely the same as
f the whole volume of circulation con-
sisted of standard coin.
Our Indebtedness.
One of the most effective arguments |
made by the advocates of free coinage !
s that the people are in debt, and that |
t is the duty of the government to |
'efieve them by such legislation as will /
enable them to procure cheap money |
or the purpose of discharging their /
This argument comedies
hat under the proposed system Of free
coinage at the ratio of Is to l, all the
yarious kinds of currency in use by
he people, including the silver dollar
tself, would be worth less than it is
low, for, of course. if this is not to be
he result, money would be no cheap
r than it is now. The Indebtedness of
he farmers, mechanics, and other la
,oring classes of our people, although
arge in the aggregate, is quite small
n comparison with the whole indebted
less of the great railroad and manu-
acturing corporations, banks, trust
insurance companies, build
ng associations and other organiza-
ions engaged in financial and COM
nercial enterprises. These organiza-
ions are indebted to the people many
billions of dollars, and while it is true
hat many of the people are also in
ebted to them, their debtors and cred
.ors are not the same persons, and, }
therefore,, the debt cannot be set off
gainst each other and extinguished in
hat way.
No Debtor Class.
1 deny that there is such thing as