Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1895-07-11

Certainly these men cannot afford TO
seek merely temporary boom of their
states at the expense of the whole Union,
and liable at any time to collapse. They
are not unlearned nor unfamiliar with the
history Of Peru and other silver states;
and know that it has been declared long
ago by high authority that the most
abundant silver mines add little to the
wealth of the world" and have learned
by observation that states dependent
upon mines of the precious metals find
their prosperity tickle and apt to tcrm-
nate when the mines are exhausted.
Every ounce Of the metal extracted dimin-
ishcs the value of the mine. silver mines
attract merely a sparse population, and
that only in spots. California has already
found both agriculture and fruit culture
more remunorative and permanently pros
porous than either gold or silver mining,
and so must other states find many other
| industries, now inconspicuous, far more
important. The price of silver is AXed
| all over the world by the mines of the
greatest fertility, and lean mines must be
abandoned upon the discovery OF others
more fertile. The silver from Nevada
fetches no more than that OF the richest
bonanza mine of Mexico, Montana or
| Colorado.
| Silver is a beautiful metal and will,
no doubt ever continue in circulation as
money; but it is one Of the metals, as
has been declared ''of which the precious
value is derived from its scarcity, and 1t.
| ia necessarily degraded by It's abundance"
! IT has before and after the discovery of
America suffered degradat quite equal
! to that now existing. 1t has ever been
most convenient in minor business af
/ fairs, but excluded from larger financial
| transactions because its transportation
! makes exchange too expensive, and it can
/ furnish little or no basis upon which the
/ ra1c ,t,ti nf mn
currency can be fairly predicated. AS one
! of our national products it should not be
undervalued, although, when compared
with many other products. it is of rather
limited value, being in 1893. at its CONNER
cial value less than $4O,GO00 900, while Mr..
| Atkinson sets forth the hen product of
eggs at S135 0000O0
/ one of the clouds that now hang over
the reViving prosperity of our country
arises from the fortified political agita-
ton of the question as to whether or not
we shall have good dollar two years
hence or only a 5O-cent dollar. Some lack
of confidence may be created in business
affairs and public credit BY the ostenta-
/ tious purpose Of silver convention mine
owners to make contributions, perhaps
proportonate to their enormous output
Of silver bullion, in order to boom its free
! coinage and hypnotic political parties
This cloud is not without its silver lining
! The elections of 1894 appear to have
! proved that both the populist and silver
craze We're ON the wane gaining nothing
in republican states and dethroning it's
idols in Kansas, Nebraska and West Viz
ginia There was, also, a more conserva-
tive outlook in the Northwest for a sober
ana stable money standard. The career
of a rampant populist governor in Color
/ ado ended, ana even Nevada evinced a
growing sanity by its legislative action in
making it lawful for her people to shoot