The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1895-10-26
INCONSISTENT slLvERlrEs.
Fallacious Reasoning Of the Cheap Money
Missionaries.

i
Fallacious Reasoning Of the Cheap Money |
Missionaries.
The Salt Lake Tribune, under the cap
ton, THE Inconsistent Goldite, takes
exception to a remark in the Courier
Journal that the mine owners will be
the only benefciaries of free coinage,
and that under that system silver dol
lars will be worth no more than the
bullion value of the silver contained in
them. The Tribune argues that If the
dollar coined Will be worth no more
than bullion in it the mine owner will
not be benefited.
! As this is as near an argument as any
thing that comes from the silver min
era we propose to examine it more
closely. We must premise, however,
that the Inconsistency Is really on the
part Of the silverites, who insist that
free coinage would so increase the
price of silver bullion rs to bring it to
q parity with gold at the legal ratio,
and at the same time that it would
double the prices of commodities 1t
Is clear that both these effects could
not follow. If the parity between
gold and silver at sixteen to one were
maintained, as the silverites claim,
then there could be no advance in
prices of anything except silver, and
the miners of that metal would have
their profits more than doubled.
If this did not happen. it still does
not prove that the silver miners would
not be benefited. They wish a market
Tor their bullion. Under free coinage
they could have four hundred and
twelve and q half grains of standard
silver, worth in the market recently
about Atty cents, stamped as legal
s tender dollar. This dollar they could
impose on everybody in this country
whom they owed for the equivalent OF
e a gold dollar. On the other hand, as
they have been taking all notes pay
able to them with the stipulation that
they should be paid in gold coin OF the
weight and fneness now prescribed by
law, they would sustain no correspond
ing loss On the other side, provided
their creditors were not ruined by the
panic which would be apt to follow
the degradation of the currency
Against this last contingency, how
ever, they are said to have protected
themselves to large degree by mort
cages on valuable property.
The question necessarily arises
whether with free coinage there woult
be continuance of the attempt u
keep the different kinds of United
states money at parity If such al
effort was made, so long as it succeeded
the owner of bullion would get on
dollar and twenty-nine cents per ounc
for 1t, since be could exchange the sill
yer dollar for one in gold. 1t is obvi
GUS, however, that the struggle to pre-
serve the parity could not long b
maintained under the new conditions
AS fast as the dollars were coined Their
would be an effort to exchange Their
for gold, and there would also be ru
on the treasury by the holders OF lega
tender notes. Under such circun
stances gold would inevitably go to
premium. and silver dollars woul
seek the level of their bullion value
If the silverites were strong enough
pass bill for free coinage they woui
doubtless have the power to repeal tn
present laws by which the parity
the two metals is maintained.
The silverites, moreover, conten
that the enactment of free coinae
law would create an unlimited deman
for silver, and thereby put up the con
mcrcial price to the coinage rati
This has been refuted, II it is meal
that the commercial price of silv'
would go to and remain at one doll'
and twenty-nine cents in gold. TIL
II would be worth one dollar and TIVE
ty-nine cents in silver, at the silv
standard. is matter of course; that
what . silver standard means Neve
theless, free coinage would increa
the demand for silver bullion temper
rily, perhaps, because it could be rees
" converted into dollars and used
nav debts But this defrauding
creditors could be done only once, al
the purchasing power of the silv
could not possibly be kept up above
81 bullion value. Under manipulati
this bullion value might rise for
time, as happened after the passage
the Sherman act in 1890. but it won
be followed by disastrous reactie
We should then have an unstable CT
rency subject to great fluctuations,
the manifest embarrassment OF bu
ness. Louisville Courier-Journal.