The Portland daily press., 1895-06-14
is discussed as such, and that too in the
way intimated by Prof Jevons

SottEy COul6fe0Ce-dnQ not all OIL 9Helll, VI
the most radical of them made by the
American delegates-in favor of bimetal-
ism were answered the official record of
the proceedings does not show it. The
| answer to such arguments is inertia, ST.
lence and profitable acquiescence in a
state OF things that enhance the interest
OF money lenders at the expense of money
borrowers. The same is as true as to the
exhaustive arguments of Senators Tellor
and Wolcott in the American Senate.
Those who advocate the reinstatement
OF silver in our monetary system can ap-
peal to the authority in this country Of
men and of books whose right to speak
on all questions of political economy is
| never questioned; "while abroad. as
Mr.. Walker says, "some of the ablest
economists of France and Germany are
writing actively in favor of the double
| standard, maintaining their cause with
yigor and courage -
Even in England, par eminence the
creditor nation, if her ablest financial
Stuart Mill, Jeyons and Cairnes are not
plme tallsts they have furnished the prin-
ciples and arguments upon which bimet-
allsm is justified. The agitation in that
country is by no means all on one side.
Leading reviews like the Nineteenth Cen
tury give hospitality to articles advocat-
ing silver coinage with liberality that
|
The same contributions receive at the
hands of American reviews and commel-
cIal journals. The Liverpool Chamber
of Commerce has declared for bimetalism
Mr.. Grenfell, late Governor of the Bank
of England has been an official of the
Bimetalic League, and Henry III. Gibbs
M F., who was also Governor of the
bank of England, and attended the first
Monetary Conference as a staunch mono
metallst, has since publicly retracted his
earlier opinion and been made the presi-
dent of the Bimetalic League. Even
Sir William Vernon Harcourt, who as the
Chancellor of the Exchequer stands stout
ly for the single standard, has admitted
that the political economists are on the
blmetalic side. A reversal of the posi-
tlon OF parties in England, than which
nothing is more probable, might place
Mr.. Balfour in Sir Williams S place and
reverse the financial policy of the United
Kingdom.
SILVER MEN NOT SCAMPS.
While this plea is offered for the intel
ligence of bimetalists and their entire
competence to arrive at correct and scien-
tifc opinions, it is unfortunately neces-
sary to say word to vindicate their
honesty.
The Western farmers, who so unani-
mously demand to have silver reinstated
as the coin basis of our monetary system
are not thieves, nor tramps, nor dead
BEATS who are trying to pay their debts
in fraudulent dollar worth only fifty
cents. This is not a very auspicious
time for paying debts anyhow, and the
Western farmer, instead of paying his
debts, is thinking what unmortgaged
thing he has got left upon which to bor-
row more money. He pays the unscaled
interest at gold rates on his mortgage,
and all he knows about it is that some
how 1T takes twice as much corn, twice
as much wheat twice as many cattle and
Sheep twice as much labor to pay it as
when his debt was incurred He has got
the suspicion that somehow it is the
wretched tinkering with a monetary sys-
tenn that is older than history or civiliza-
tion, that has put him into this condi-
tion. Besides If cheap and cheaper dol
lars were as plenty as blackberries he
does not know, and none of the wise
acres who are traducing and insulting
him, have been able to tell him, how he
can get those cheap dollars and expend in
the getting one hours less backache
While he means to be strictly just he has
got an inkling that he is being exploited
for the profit OF some other man or some
class or corporation, and is beginning to
demand that strict and scientific justice
shall be secured to him.
SILVER MEN ARE THE CONSERVA-
TIVES.
Then too he protests that as he is no
fool and no knaye, that he is not an an
archist, or wild-eyed revolutionist, or
fanatical disturber of public order, of an
cient commercial usages, or of the rights
and values of tangible and intangible
property. On this money question he is
on the conservative side. He stands for
old commercial customs. He is in debt,
his neighobrs are in debt, the banks, the
railroads, the manufacturing corpora
tions, the towns, the cities, the States,
the Nation, all are in debt, but debt is
one thing and insolvency is another
thing He does not approve of violent
changes in the monetary basis of the
universal private and public credit that
will foreclose his mortgage, drive his
neighbors to bankruptcy, fail the banks
wreck the railroads and drive political
corporations to reputation So far as
this kind of wreck and wastage has been
going on the last two years under his
eyes he does not like it, and who does,
and who has profited by it? What he
wants is that the mining and irrigating
and cattle raising industries of the West
shall resume their suspended operations,
that the stream of home emigration shall
start again, that the arrested growth of
the country shall begin again. that the
railroads now i'll the hands of the courts
shall recover their business and pay the
| interest on their bonds, that Savings
Banks of the East shall shorten the long
list of their securities that have defaulted
interest, and that the half million per an
mum of foreign immigrants shall be
again attracted to our shores by general
prosperity of business and trade
If the reckless squad of gold monomet-
alists who have declared their purpose to
drive out of use except as subsidiary cur
rency half the coined money of the civil
lied world, had not the aid of the always.
timid moneyed class, and the prejudice of
the great multitude whose boast it is
that they know nothing about finance,
but who are easily duped by such phrases
as fifty cent dollar, " sound currency"
etc.. etc, they could not elect Il single
member of Congress or of a State legisla-
ture; but with the aid of the great inert
mass of men, who, like Mr.. Cleveland
and the resolution makers of the Demo-
tin ,ati To do