Mexico weekly ledger., 1895-09-26
HAS NO GOLD BACKING.
Why Mexican Silver Dollars Will
Not and French Five-Franc Pieces
Will Pass as Dollars.
From the Richmond wal Times

From the Richmond (va.) Times.
A friend has put this case to us: A
Mexican silver dollar contains some
three or four cents worth of silver
more than an American silver dollar,
yet it will only pass in the United
States at its bullion value-or for a
little more than fifty cents. A French
five-franc silver piece contains some
two cents worth of silver less than an
American silver dollar, yet it will
pass here as the equivalent of five
francs of gold, Or for about two cents
less than our gold dollar. Why is it,
says he, that the M passes as gold
while the other will only pass at its
bullion value?
The case is a perfectly simple one.
Mexico is a country that has free
coinage of silver, and consequently
Mexico has no gold in her currency.
If you get a gold dollar in Mexico you
must buy it al you buy wheat, and
you must give two silver dollars for
one gold dollar. Free coinage has
made Mexico a silver monometallic
country, just as it would make the
United States a silver monometallic
country. Under 1t, therefore, our
working people would be paid their
wages, as they r paid in Mexico, in
silver coins called dollars, that would
be worth in fact only half-dollars.
And this is to be noted of Mexico:
Wages are the same there now that
they YER twenty-five years ago,
when a silver dollar was as valuable
as a gold dollar. The mony in which
wages are paid has deprecated one
half while wages has advanced so
little, if they have advanced at all,
that the advance is not appreciable.
We must ask pardon for this digres-
sion, but the opportunity for an in
structive object-lesson to our work
ing people was too tempting to be
passed. But to u
France is not a free coinage coun-
try. She closed her mints to the free
coinage of silver about twenty years
ago. She has about seven hundred
millions of dollars of silver in her cur-
rency, but she keeps herself upon the
gold basis, and treats each one of her
silver coins wherever she sees it just
as though it were q gold coin. She
ralnryrnn n olxynr ~ nra ytann
wherever five-francs are due her just
as though it were a gold five-franc
piece, and her bank, WHICH substan-
TALLY corresponds to our Treasury,
knows no difference between the two
coins. One is substantially exchange
able for the other all over France.
When France saw herself some 20
years back with al much as seven
hundred millions of dollars of silver,
and silver rapidly falling in value,
she concluded that she would be un-
able to keep any more of it at par
with her gold coins, and so she wisely
stopped coming silver. Her bank
keeps always in its vaults a very large
sum in gold, enough, according to the
public judgment, for holding $780,
000, 900 of silver at par with gold.
The United States has about S424,-
900 900 of silver dollars. Our Govern
ment also looks upon one of its silver
dollars and treats it, wherever it sees
it, as a gold dollar. If a gold dollar is
due our government, it receives a sill
yer dollar in payment of it., although
the oliver dollar is worth only half as
much as the gold dollar is. 1t pays it's
duties in gold dollars Substantially
and receives silver dollars in payment
of them. 1t will practically give you
a gold dollar in exchange for every
silver dollar you carry to it. We say
"practically," for that is the substance
of the thing. 1t will give a gold dollar
for every one of it's $500, 000, 900 of
notes, and you a take your silver
dollars to a bank and get greenbacks
for them, and then demand gold of
the government for the greenbacks.
To answer our friend specifically,
then, we say that the Mexican silver
dollar, though intrinsically worth
more than the American silver dollar,
will only pass for it's bullion value of
some fifty cents because the Mexican
government leaves it to take care of
itself, and as it will only give its bull
lion value for it, no one else will give
any more. The French government
gives five francs Of gold for every one
of its five franc silver pieces, and any
one in America viii take one of them
as five francs of gold because he can
send it to France and get five francs
of gold for it. The American silver
dollar passes as a gold dollar because
our government will, in effect, give a
gold dollar for every one of them.
NyN ur1D- r~ry~ vnr-v-r