The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1895-06-01
Silver's Fall and
General Prices.
Professor Laughlin Argues That There is No
Connection Between Them-Barker's Reply.

I (p. 13 In Zietschrift fur Volksmithshaft,
Socialpolitik und Verwaltung, Vol. Nv.
Heft. l. 1857
Unquestionably silver has fallen for rea-
sons peculiar to itself, independently OF
the reasons affecting commodities In gem
eral. In brief. silver has fallen because OF
the enormous gold production which has
enabled commercial nations to use gold IN
their currency and discard silver Com
modities have fallen because OF Improved
processes Of production, cheapened means
1 Of transportation and the opening up OF
new resources. The extraordinary gains
of invention In the last twenty-five years
are the marvels of the century. lowering
the cost of every article Of general con-
sumption. The cheapening has been far
beyond the slight per cent. shown by the
figures. Why did not prices OF goods faii
more than s per cent? That requires ex-
PLANTATION. The only possible reason Is
that gold also fell In cost, but goods fell
per cent more. In the race goods slightly
outstripped gold.
But what about wages? Has the laborer.
| because Of the scarcity, got less OF 1t?
Quite the contrary. Wages have risen In
a marked and general way. Taking the
average Of 5i3 distinct series OF quotations
| from the senate report on prices, before
quoted, and taking 100 as the starting
point from which to start In 1873. the wages
| In 1891 would be indicated by the number
| 1883. Their wages rose s per cent since
1873, while prices OF the articles they con-
sumo have fallen since 1873 far more What-
ever 1t was which happened in 1873 1t has
been boon to the working classes.
Farmers and Their Products.
We hear It dinned into our ears so much
that the farmer Is impoverished by the
fall in the prices of his products due to the
shrinkage Of metallic money since demon
etization in 1873 that 1t Is astonishing no
one looks into the facts. 1t is the simple
truth that more silver Is In circulation to-
day than in 1873, and there is more gold by
hundreds of millions in circulation than
ever before. But first take the farmers
own products. The products which have
fallen in price-cotton and wheat-are arti-
cles whose price is fixed by International
competition In the markets of the world
Using 100 In 1873 as the basis for compar-
ison. in 1894 wheat had fallen to 49l and
cotton to 1873. but the movement from 1873
to 1884 of wheat and cotton has been out OF
all correspondence with silver.
But when we take the products like corn,
oats and mess pork, whose prices are not
affected by foreign competition (as are
wheat and cotton), we find not only that
they did not fall with silver. but are actu-
ally as high or higher relatively to gold
in 1894 than they were In 1878. Taking 100
as the basis In 1873, the facts are as fol-
lows:
Mess Sill
Corn. Oats. pork. yer.
1873 .................. 100 100 100 100
1894 .....................llO 1908 1913 4s.1
The farmers corn, oats and pork will
today buy twice as much silver as In 1873.
But the articles bought by the farmer
have fallen so much that even the fall in
price Of wheat enables him to buy his
hardware with less number bushels Of
wheat, and more truly, of course, with
corn and oats, because these latter have
risen. The following table will show this:
Prices agreed upon by Messrs. Kingsland
Douglass, successors of Kingsland, Fer
guson & Co., Simmons Hardware company,
and Mansur & Tibbetts Implement COM
pany, all of st. Louis, Mo-: