St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-01-21

trust excited by our silver legislation OF
1890 more strikingly than tue returns OF
any of the three preceding years during
which the Sherman act had been IN
operation. For the two fiscal years,
1901 and 1912 combined, the foreign
commercial movement, including that
of gold and silver, showed an
Excess of Exports
over imports amounting to $3.50, 100000.
or an average per year OF 500, 000,0O0.
Taking the amount needed for payments
OF interest and dividends at the usually
estimated sum of $l00,000,000 per year.
it follows that the balance of S65,OOO.00O
went to pay for returned securities or to
settle withdrawn credits. For the past
year we had net trade balance of $751;
0OU,OG0 in our favor, and yet made a net
export of gold amounting to S1,000,0O0.
leaving 1892, 900, 600 to be accounted for.
Assuming S100,000,000 of that sum to
have gone in the payment OF dividends
and interest, the remaining S162, COO
will represent our liQuidations Of vari-
Gus forms of foreign financial indebted-
ness, such as securities sent home, real
estate mortgages, banking and other
running balances, the owners of which
preferred to withdraw FROM use here.
With the foregoing figures covering
three and One-halt years, it is easy tOsee
how, during the four and one-half years
for which theS liver act OF 1890 has
been in ope alton we may have
been driven into the liquidation
of fully $3.50, 000,0 900 of the principal of
! our various forms or debt to foreign
! countries. There can be little question
about the cause of these immense with
drawals of capital to Europe. In the
main, it signifies that our foreign cred
itors have become distrustful of our
| ability to save ourselves from drifting
upon the silver basis. Their fear is not
so much about the possibility of our
taking care Of such silver money as we
! at present have. 1t is that The silver
faction. which has shown its ability to
force on the country already 500, 900, 0O0
| or what are virtually 50-cent dollars,
| and that 1t may still retain force enough
to yet further increase those issues in
definitely; and they say that we have
no satisfactory assurances to the con-
trary to advance-Dut hopes only,
which. 1t is claimed, find little backing
in the present phases of federal poll
ties. In all this there is Il great deal of
eXaggeration of the worst features of
our case, and perhaps little disposition
! to give due credit for the certainty with
which we always ultimately
$500 Correct Our Hsiunders:
but the fact. nevertheless, is that our
critics choose 10 take their own view of
the matter, and their opinions can be
changed only by some sort of conclusive
demonstration that no further issues of
silver money in the United States are
possible. The prospects OF currency
legislation by the present congress are
fast vanishing, if they have not wholly
disappeared. Any general scheme for
dealing with bank circulation becomes
! more impossible of hurried realization
as diyerSitieS of opinion develop.
Time must be allowed for the compar-
ison and maturing of views; and senti-
ment seems to be drifting in favor of
the appointment of national commits
sion of eminent experts, who shall hear
witnesses and report conclusions at the
next session of congress. There is
much to be said in favor of that course,
especially as congressman are lmper-
fectly informed on the question, and as
this method of treatment might develop
the mature judgment of those best quail
flied to counsel better than any
other. But the deranged condition of
the treasury finances, and especially of
the gold reserve, is a separate matter,
which will not admit of any such post
ponement. A measure providing in the
first place for deficiencies OF revenue,
and in the next for fixed gold income,
| imperatively needs to be enacted at the
pending session of congress, and it is
hardly conceivable that the adminiStra-
ton will fail to urge the adoption of a
law to that effect at an early DAY. That
being accomplished, the more acute and
urgent difficulties will be overcome, and
the question of retiring the legal ten
ders and filling their places with bank
notes can be we'll allowed to stand over
for year without any immediate seri-
Gus Inconvenience. That is in the ma
tuIe of general currency measure,
whilst the treasury problem is the much
narrower one of establishing recent
| departures from the customary uSageS
Of making payments 10 The government
in gold or gold certificates.
HENRY CLEWS.