Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1895-10-11
LOSS SUSTAINED BY FARMERS.

paving off mortgages.
The corn crop of 1893, at the price of
1873, would have yielded S6G0,O0O, 900,
instead of SIP, 000,000.
The cotton crop of 1893, at the price of
cotton in 1873, would have been worth
to the South Sl96, 100000, instead of
Sl4S. 900 900, its actual value i'm 1893.
81. The difference in the value of
farm products in 1873 and in 1893 cor
rectly marks the difference between
prices with free coinage of silver, as
well as gold and prices as measured by
the single standard of gold. The value
of farms and farm lands has fallen even
more than farm products.
1t is not easy to calculate the loss to
farmers and planters in the twenty
years from 1873 to 1898 by the fall in
the value of farms and farm products,
rs the direct result Of THE CHANGE IN
THE MONEY STANDARD. Their ability
to pay debts and taxes, at any rate, has
been reduced in the exact ratio to the
fall in prices.
EARNINGS OF LABOR.
%. The earnings of labor. counted IN
money, have been reduced also. While
many things which the laborer uses
have fallen with his earnings taxes,
debts, cost of education, and many other
thugs nave uOl bttH ItuuCtu lIlt net
result being proportional loss to labor
the greatest loss being, perhaps. in loss
of employment and consequently in the
total earnings of the laboring class.
TIE EXTENT OF THE FALL OF PRICES.
g. The extent of the fall i'm the gen
eral range of prices cannot be exactly
stated, out tables made at different times
by Soetbeer, Saurbeck. Palgrave, the
] | nnnnn Economist and Ntaripnc tn hlae -,
this country, brought down to 1893,
show an average fall of prices of from
33 to 10 per cent, which is equivalent to "A
rise in the purchasing power of gold of
from 30 to so per cent.
81 That is, on an average, three to
three and half measures of everything.
or three to three and half days labor,
must be given for the same quantity of
gold which two measures or two days
labor would obtain before silver was
demOnetized. and the fall continues and
Will continue as long as the single stand
ard of gold is adhered to.
THE CONTINUATION OF TIE FALL OF
PRICES.
9S. The London Economist of July
,. 1892, says: "There has as yet been no
cessation of the fail in the prices of
commodities"
The table published in the Economist
shows that the index number, adopted
years ago by this journal, representing
/ the prices Of twenty-five leading com
modities, has gone down from 2259,
where it stood July ,. 1890 to POSI- for
/ July |. 1892. which shows fall i'm the
general range of prices of 40 per cent in
two years; but from January |, 1892, to
July |, 1892, the fall has been pa per
cent, or at the rate of $ per cent per
annum; and the fall is still greater for
| 1893.
As fall of 334 per cent in prices is
the same thing as "a rise of 30 per cent in
the value of money, so is fall of As per
cent, in The general range of prices in
year, equivalent to a rise in the money
standard of over > per cent. That is, at
the rate of fall in prices shown by the
London Economies, 95.2 cents will buy
as much at the end of a year as Sl.00
would at the beginning.
90. This continued fall of prices is
irrespective of tariff, which proves con-
clusively that neither protection nor
free trade can prevent, under existing
conditions, the continued downward ten
dency of prices. 1t would be idle TO
claim that there had been any material
change in the past six months in the la
Dor cost of producing any of the twenty
two articles included IN the table of the
London Economist. There can be,
therefore. but one explanation. and that
Is that the change is in the money stand
ard and not in the commodities, and
what is here called the fall of prices is
nothing but an increase in the value of
the money unit arising out of the grow
ing scarcity of gold. The fall of prices
and the rise of money are here, in fact,
one and the same thing.
An increase of } per cent IN the value
of money in a single year means, of
course, an increase in all taxes and
debts in the same proportion.
Does anybody need TO be told that
there must he AN end TO this some dav,
or that revolution and reputation for
half the nations of the world must be
the final outcome of such monetary
policy;
THE DIRECT RELATION OF WHEAT AND
COTTON TO SILVER.
l02. Prices generally might advance as
the result of an increase in the volume of
money, without materially affecting
wheat and cotton and other products that
come in direct competition with India.
1903. The reason for this is that silver
bullion is admitted 10 free coinage into
| pies III lltlld WI lllt ldllo VI IL W = VI
s 81 an ounce
Prices in India in silver have not mate
rally changed since 1873, and in "A coun-
try of such extent, where habits are
fixed as they are there, changes. if at all.
must be very slow; consequently, Is sill
yer bullion falls. it takes less gold 10 get
the silver 10 convert into rupees TO pay
for wheat or cotton. In other words, the
same number of rupees will buy given
quantity of cotton or wheat in India, re-
gardlesS of the gold cost of the rupees;
hence, as silver goes down. the gold cost
of wheat and cotton in India is reduced,
and as our surplus wheat and cotton goes
/ to Liverpool In direct competition with the
wheat and cotton of India. it must go
down as the gold cost of the same pro-
duets in India go dOwn.t
l0l. India never did compete with us
/ in the markets of Europe, in wheat and
cotton, until the sO-caled decline OF sill
/ Ver-but i'm reality the rise i'm OOld-made