The Forrest City times., 1895-08-09

yer is min;ed into legal tender coins where gold circulaies as money. The cnmmer-
 cial relations between European countries
 and our own are more intimate to day than were the relations between the states of the Hnion prior to the civil war All Eu-
 rope has practically the gold standard and
 al! international exchanges, whether with gold standard or silver standard countries
 are settled on gold basis The great bulk ot tlie foreign commerce of the ! United States is with countries having
 the gold standard. During the las: fiscal ! year We exported 60 Europe merchandise
 of the value of S1Oo. .cD0 coo. while we im- | ported fron inc same countries merchant disc Of inc value of S29j. GOO GOO Be- ! tween countries which use the same metal i as money there Is par Of exchange which varies only within well defined limits,
 regulated by the balence of trade. Be-
 tween countries which use different metals as measure of value there is at present no natural par because Of the fluctuations in
 the commercial value of silver. Stability
 m the rates of exchange is Of the very es- l seBce of commercial transactions based on credit. Without this there is necessarily
 an uncertainty which it is impossible to eliminate, and which complicates and de- ters business transactions. In this lies
 the permanent evil of a silver basis for our uIoney-the uncertainty and fiuctua- ti0Es in the value of our currency as meas
 ured by the worlds standard-goid What the purchasing power of our cur rency III domestic transactions would be would depend upon conditions which no
 one can foresee or accurately forecast. THE DUMPING GROUNDS.
 If the hints Of this country were open, un-
 der present conditions. to the unlimited coin-
 age of silver into legal dollars. the United States would quickly become the dumping
 ground of fhe worlds silver. The hints of Europe and India are closed to silver coinage. Is it conceivable that the invitation to the
 change 31l44 grains ot silver now worth fifty
 tw c cents, for one Of our legal-teDder dollars
 would not be needed? If our hints should be
 open to the free coinage of silver. the current
 product or silver would most certainly and
 swiftly find it's way there. Tho annual pro-
 duct Of silver at the present price, sixty
 seven cents an ounce approxnates l62. .000, ,6Ue
 onnces. which would coin in silver dollars,
 f3j90OJ. .0Ol, a snug little profit to the owners
 of silver mines Of over Sl01.0y0UO0 on the
 present. annual product only. IT price of
 sixty-seyen cents an ounce brings forth
 product of the coinage value of fZ0J.0OJ0oU. il
 is safe to say that with silver at Si 2a an ounce
 Jour coinage rate} the output would bc enor-
 mousiy increascd Mexico, South America
 and many portions of this continent und Au-
 sIrala abound with deposits of low grade
 lead ores in which silver is the metal of chief value. which ores cannot be profltably desil- verized at the present commercial value Of silver, but which would be opened up and their silver contents dumped into the treas ury of the United States. with silver at Sl.2g
 an ounce. But what of European stocks of | Gsltra, .1I. iu i,p1 fail Esus Whether they are bimetaliic in theory
 monOmetuliic. gold alone constitutes the
 measure of values in all continental countries. Many Of the European countries have ln their hunks and treasurles large boards of over valued silver coins. coined in former years.
 which they would be glad to exchange Tor our gold. The bank of France alone has in irs vaults S2J0 000 900 Of oyervalued silver coin. | II the gold value Of our legal-teuder money | remained undisturbed, the passage of a free coinage act by the United States would afford a splendid opportunity for such an exchange. if our hints should be open to the free t, coinage of silver under existing conditions. | Inc stocks of silver would move to this cOun- | try solely because they could be converted at l the highest market price, into our legaten-
 der money, which in turn. could be converted | iuto gold at par; but the moment our curren- cy feacheda a silver basis, when our lcga-ten- | der paper money could be exchanged only for | silver dollars, the profit to the foreign sh yer owner for tho interchange of his silver for 1 our gold would cease and silver would be im- 1 ported only as an exchange transaction, just
 as gold is now.
 Moreover. all the silver produced since l873. except what IS used in the industrial arts, has been converted into money either by act ual coinage or the issue of legal-tender notes against the bullion held as reserve. This product has been enormous as com pared with ! prior periods, the period of high prices. The product or silver during the last twenty years 1 has aggregated over E 4U0.U00 600 in coining 1 value while during the preceding twenty 1 years it was only S94S 0o0.0O0. The coinage of
 silver for the last twenty years has aggregated | s,.:I00. 100000.
 So that it is not true that the money of ul- l timate redemption. either gold or silver has diminished since 1873, and consequently the
 argument based on this misstatement falls With it.
 | li is impossible in the space allotted me to enter upon the question Of tbe dec line of prices, but it is sufficient to say that there is l not one of the great staple commodities which l has fallen largely in price where such decline l cannot be readily traced to circumstances ef- i tecting the demand anu the supply of the ar | ticie itself.
 Undoubtedly it might be possible by mak- | ing dollar actually worth only hfty-cents, to 1 bring about condition of monetary affairs when it would take two dollars to buy what one will now purchase; but q more certain and expeditions way to depreciate the cur. rency, If that is the aim, would be to start the government paper mills going and issue pa | per dollars. If prices are to be increased through the depreciation of the purchasing agent-mOncy, II certainly would not he an l unmlxed blessing. Unless wages increased | in the same proportion as other commodities. l II IS evident that the wage earner would not be henehted, As shown by the report of the 1 senate Finance Committee wages averaged over 90 per cent higher in 1891 than in lsG0 According tO the census of legO the earnings | of labor increased over forty per cent as com- pared with the prior census-a period of ten years. If, therefore the staple necessities of | life have fallen largely in price in recent years, an immense advantage has been reap 1 ed by the wage earner.
 DECLINE OF PRICES.
 | Ut is said that the decline in prices which
 has occurred during the last 70 years has been 1 occasioned by the disuse of silver as money