The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1895-05-14

disgraced and stricken do"n'
Something more or conservative
monetary lines to increase the cur
rencv and restore prices and prosper
ity must be done.
Silver and gold, if both are held in
tact 16 to 1 the world over, are not
sufficient in quantity and amount, and
does not bid fair to be sufficient at any
time in the future to discharge the
money function of the world.
The discovery and output of both
metals are becoming less and less
YEARLY, and the demand and absolute
necessity, for more and more and more
money, are increasing daily.
More people and more business every
hour; more demands for money and
less money every hour as compared
with population and business. This is
now the case all over the world and
has been for the last twenty years and
is becoming more so every day.
By striking down silver, the value
of gold, the only money metal left, was
greatly enhanced and silver greatly
reduced in value. Legislation in this
and other countries destroyed the COM
mercial and money value of silver; and
in the same proportion as it destroyed
the value of silver it enhanced the
value of gold, and as it increased the
value of gold, it decreased the value
of every other commodity measured
by gold, the only standard or measure
of value since the destruction of silver
as a measure of values.
AS the demonstration of silver de-
stroyed as a money metal about one.
half of the money metal of the world,
50 would it's restoration by remonetiza-
ton restore to it's monetary throne
about one half of the money metal of
the world.
This restoration of silver would in.
crease its value and decrease the value
of gold. 1t would carry silver up in
value and bring gold down in value,
until the two metals got together on
the same footing and on a parity with
each other at the ratio Of Is to 1.
This of course would ~depreciate gold
and appreciate silver and constitute
both as a single standard of values.
1t would decrease the purchasing
power of gold and increase the purchas-
ing power of silver until they both got
together on par with each other. And
as a further result of this process, as
gold fell in value and silver rose in
value every other commodity in the
commercial and financial world would
rise in value in the same proportion
and at the same ratio as gold de-
creased in value and silver increased
in value. And the only possible him
derance and drawback to such results
would be discovery of silver mines,
and the output in such quantities as to
flood the world in silver. All admit
that if silver and gold we're as album
dant as iron these metals would be as
cheap as iron. But the world has been
standing some say millions of years;
others say six thousand years, and we
have NEUROLOGICAL and quasi-historical
records and the Scriptures all showing
that the world was created at least
six thousand years ago. And during
all these thousand years, neither silver
o gold has been discovered in such
quantities as to materially increase
their quantities so as to decrease their
value by over production.
And the statesman who prophesies
such a result in the ear or far future
simply prophesies against history, ex-
perience, reason, truth and the pre-
ordained course of Nature, and stulti-
ies his own intellect, mystifes his rea
son, and stamps himself as q man with
out knowledge, understanding or wis
dom.
The argument so often made and re-
peated, should this country go the I'M
limited coinage of silver, all the ma
tions of the earth would dump their
silver in this country and food us in
silver and break down it's value is stul-
LITIGATION to perfection. This argu-
ment so-called is without force. In
the first place no nation could or
would give up its silver. No nation
now has any too much. No nation
could bring its silver here and coin and
stamp it as money for any other coun-
try. They would have to sell their
silver to us at it's market value, and it's
market value would be the same the
world over, less the transportation and
cost of sale, so it would be worth about
as much in one country as in another.