Virginia free press. (Charlestown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1832-1916, 1895-05-22

suits of one mans labor against those OF
another. The price of commodities will
always tend TO point near the cost of
production plus the cost of transportation
aud handling. To this the precious met
ais themselves are no exception, albeit the
silver men insist that their price is purely
conventional, a matter of general agree
ment among those who use them. For,
as a matter of relative value, it is just as
accurate to say that bushel Of wheat is
worth two pounds Of certain grade of
tea in New York as it is to say that eth
er can be exchanged for the equivalent of
60 cents in gold. A cargo of wheat can
be exchanged for certain number of
boxes of tea without any gold being used
in the transaction Il is only when the
difference in value between great mass
of commercial exchanges involving per-
haps many counties, comes to be adjust
ed that the country which has nothing
else to offer in settlement which the rest
of the world is ready to take is called on
to pay gold. The United States can buy
coffee in Brazil by means of cotton deliv-
cred in Liverpool, just as readily as it can
the produc of EngIish potteries by the
same kind of exchange. The activity
aud volume of this trade has as little or
as much relation to the worlds stock of
the precious metals as the wages Of domes-
tic service have to the price Of loaf Of
bread 1t would require u very subtle
analysis 10 discover any effective CORES
pondence in either case.
Ia the memory of man it has not been
the custom Of the civilized world TO ten
der silver in payment of any consid.
erable debt. With the first intimation
of danger that the white metal might be.
come less valuable than gold at the esIab-
lshed ratio Of coinage, and therefore be
rendered useless as basis of public con-
Gdence in the ability of banks to redeem
their notes in coin as good as that against
which they we're issued, the effort to
maintain double standard, even in name,
began to be abandoned. Germany, actu-
ated by laudaole desire to improve her
standing in the world of finance and Of
trade, and feeling rich enough out Of the
proceeds of the French indemnify 10 un-
derake the task, began the process Of sill
yer denomination in 1871. For the five
years preceding the average annual val
ue of silver product Of the world had been
s55,663,000. That Germany did not be-
gin her monetary reform year too soon
finds the best possible evidence in the fact
that, in spite Of the fall in the price Of sill.
yer, which began in 1872 and has contin-
ued with but slight interruption ever since,
the average annual coinage value of the
product of the ive years 1918 was
SS1 $4,000. THE rose. in the succeed
ing FIVE years, to slO1 ,S51 600, and dur
ing the five years ending with 1885 the
average annual product had a coinage
value of Sl1S,955.000 Aud yet by 1880
the average price of silver in London had
fallen to 4S pence as against 60 pence per
ounce in 1871. lis below % pence TO-
day, with a production in ounces -four
times as great as that Of 1871.
There is none of the great commercial
commodities Of the world-cerlainly none
of the chief products of its agriculture
whose production has quadrupled il
twenty-four years. If the price Of silver
has been arlifcialIy deprecated by ad
verse legislation, why has its production
advanced by leaps and bounds? p? There
must be some relation between the cost o
its production and the marke! price, or il
would long ago have ceased to be mined
So ardent bimeiaist as Suess, writing
in 1893, said $50 long as the price l.
quoted at 81 cents per ounce in New
York and the cost of production III the
ruling works is nearly 90 cents, the prof
of the works may easily be measured. =
Even at the present price of about 6ll
cents for commercial bars the works arr
not doing badly, and it may be said Incl
dentally that the economies in the process
of extracting and refining ores have no
stood still. As Suess adds, with more
candor than is exhibited by the people
who chiefly cite him as an authority
What Helms predicted 1898 in Peru
and St. Clair Duport 1913 in Mexico i
now beginning TO be realized. The time
will come wrote the latter, when lh'
production Of silver will have no otheI
limits than those imposed on it by th'
constantly increasing decline in It's value.
1t must be said openly that al
hope Of improvement in monetary relation
through decline of silver production pre-
4 a.