The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1895-09-13
LIVE ISSUES.
Silver VS.. Gold as Industrial Factors

s. Be
The demonstration of silver has
broken up the farmers of the Unit
ed States by forcing them, in the
competitive struggle against India,
Russia and South America in the
production of wheat and cotton, to
go in debt and mortgage their farms,
hoping that the good times they
had known would soon again re-
turn. Those good times did not
return and in the very nature of
things could not.
The same influence is beginning
to work the ruin of our manufac-
turers. China and Japan and India
too, are beginning to produce the
finest fabrics of the loom and I'M
dersell our manufacturers in their
home market. Japan is making
carpets and selling them for so
cents yard that cost our manufac-
turers $1.0O. Americans and the
English are taking the finest make
of weaving machinery that is man
nfactured in the United States,
England and France, to China and
Japan and with the aid of the cheap
labor of those countries and their
silver money, are in fair way to
drive our manufacturers to the
wall. The same cause that has
bankrupted our farmers is at work
to demolish our manufacturers,
and silver is the great leading factor
in this conquest of ruin.
But how can this be, is the nat
nral question suggested. Prior to
1878 silver bullion was the same
price as silver coin in all the mar
kets of the world. The demoneti-
cation of silver in the United States,
Germany and the closing of the
minis to its coinage in the Latin
Union, took away from silver its
former coin demand which kept the
metal at a fixed price, as it does
gold, but when the demand for
coinage was taken away in these
great nations the price of silver
gradually went down as the price
of other commodities fell.
Now mark this fact. The silver
money, the coins of these gold
standard countries, did not decline
in value but maintained their same
relative value to gold which they
always possessed. The silver coins
of England, France, Germany and
the United States are the same in
purchasing power that they ever
were, holding their money function
in their relation to gold they
always had. There is now so cent
silver everywhere, but no so cent
dollars anywhere, as the gold ring
advocates tell the world, but are
finding every day fewer fools to
believe them.
The decentralization of silver had
no effect on the silver standard
countries, Japan, China, India,
Mexico and the republics south of
us. These countries did not de-
monetize, they simply remained as
they were and continued to coin
silver into money, and in all of
those countries silver maintained
its purchasing power as before the
other nations ceased to coin it.
The United States and Mexico
produce about three fourths of the
silver produced in the entire world,
and this silver has been purchased
from us at the price it had fallen to
as bullion, and has been coined
into money, that maintains the
same purchasing power in those
silver countries it always had. The
silver basis nations were double
gamers by our cheap silver bullion.
They gained the value we lost and
at the same time increased their
volume of money in circulation,
which stimulated business. The
silver money of those nations con-
tinued to pay for as much labor as
ever, except perhaps the slight rise
that was liable to take place ON ac-
count of an increasing volume of
business creating fresh demands for
labor.
Gold has become commodity in
all "silver basis" countries, and
very dear commodity on account
of the struggle to get the metal