Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1895-09-29
rHe cHEAp MoNgf FALLAoY.
Free Coinage of silver Means DepFe-
 cfated Dollar.

HE IF7EEF tS4@aN@t
 Free Coinage of silver Means Depre-
 ciated Dollar
 The advocates of the extended use Of silver as currency plant themselves also on what they regard as funda- mental principle. namely, that it is de- sirable to have cheap money. But as a matter Of fact. no commodity money land all true money is Q commodity. be 1t gold, silver, copper, iron, cattle or cabbages. can be relatively cheaper than another kind. The value of each if not 2 token or representative cur rencv, and minting is free5 will depend upon the amount of labor embodied in il. or that will be required to purchase it. and no legislation can give 1t any other value If statute could make one metal or other commodity equal in value to another. the state that first availed itself Of the opportunity would acquire boundless riches, and the dream Of the alchemists would be realized. T. t requires five hundred million dollars to supply an exclusively gold currency for the United States. and silver is appreciated to fifty per cent in valae in comparison with gold, t will require one billion dollars in silver to perform the same money work as gold. and t will require the same amount of commodities or embodied labor to buy the exclusively gold cur- reu6v that it will to buy the exclusive lv silver currency. A man who advo- eates the free coinage of silver for the purpose of obtaining cheap money means, fl he has any clear idea of what he is talking ab0ut, a deprecI- atad dollar, which. if left without any provision for redemption in gold, would be worth just what the bullion contained in it would buy in the open market: but which invested with legal tender ability becomes an instrument Of rasca6ty for the sealing Of all o6li- gations Of indebtedness, wages. bonds, savings bank deposits, insuraHees, l trust payments, pensions, and the like. A person contracting to perform work for q given number of dollars especially the day laborer-wants. and is entitled to have. the dearest dollar that the market affords; and any other kind of dollar means fall work for less wages.
 A remaining argument for the free coinage of silver. or for legislation for it's increased use, Is the assertion con finual1y made with all confidence that there Is not sufficient gold in the world 10 effect its exchanges, and that the adoption by the United States of a sin gle gold standard would exclude the use of silver as currency. abolish half the present money of the world, and produce tremendous and widespread disturbances iE prices and business. Ii these assertions be true, the silver problem becomes invested with philan- thropie interest, ana the al xoeates of free coinage virtually call upon the United States to legisIate for the ben eft of humanity generally. It is i'm pertapt, therefore. to ascertain at the outset the extent of the field open to such service. More than oue-thIrd of the population of the globe use copper for money. or trade by barter, and can not by any international influence be induced to do otherwise. To another third, the almost exclusive use of silver as a money metal is an absolute neces- sity of their condition. and there is no doubt that they will so continue to use it, and in increasing quantity, for a long future. Of the remainder of the worlds population, a large proportion -i. e., the mass of the people of Rus sia, France. Spain, Italy, Portugal Mexico. South America and the like could not by reason of their economic condition use gold to any great extent as money, even if an abundant supply of it was to them available All of the nations Of the latter class use a great amount of silver for their subsidiary coinage because they cannot use gold or any other instrumentalitv to equal advantages; the United States alone carrying at the present time over seventy-seven million dollars worth of such coined silver. The claim that the adoption of a gold standard of value by the United States would be the "destruction of silver" as coinage metal is therefore simply concrete nonsense, the offspring of profound ignorance or chariatanry; and the problem of the scarcity of gold is ac- eordingly of moment, not to the whole population of the world, but to only very small part of it; to the people of the few great commercial countries.- David 4. Wells, in Toledo Blade.
 SILVER GOING BACK.