The Monticellonian., 1895-07-05
Like Carlisle.

! IeIphtO ton Ut St. Iou!S candldale for the United States Senatorship. The news created q Autter in Re publican ranks and, among other incid ,nts of the affair, 1t brought to Colonel Leighton inquiries on ths currency question. He an swers one of the inquiries through The Republic to-day.
 The Republic cheerfully gives to Colonel Leighton the necessary space, Being chiefly responsible for his getting into the trouble of answering questions we are in q measure bound to help him out of it. Moreover. he Las won ma tional reputation as writer and speaker upon finance and what he prepares is always instructive.
 But his answer to one question gives rise to another He falls in 10 the error which was conspicu- ous in Secretary Carlisle's Mem phis speech. The question we ask is how he explains his assertion that the adoption of free coinage of silver would contract the metal lie money to the extent of the dis appearance of gold from clreula- ten.
 Let us state case. If the '.vis- ible" stock of gold money in the country is $500, 100000 and free coinage at Is to l, or any other ratio which overvalues silver, IS adopted, it is true that the whole amount of gold would disappear from circulation. But it would disappear only to give place to sll- yer. And if there is S600, ,000 of silver available, no lack of met alic money would ensue.
 What Secretary Carlisle and Colonel Leighton have failed to consider is that the whole silver stock, coined and uncoined, at once becomes available for money purposes the moment silver is made money of final account.
 In another part of his letter, Colonel Leighton points ont, as Secretary Carlisle did, that the United States cannot raise the in trinsic valne of silver it home un- less it can raise the value also throughout the world. Is not that equivalent to saying that the uncomed silver stock, not onl y of this country but of the world, is ready to move wherever there is demand which will justify ship menU
 Secretary Carlisle and Colonel Leigbt are constrained by their regulations as students of finance to recognize this principle: That currency based on any metal is based on it's intrinsic value and is to be estimated with regard to the total stock of the metal and not with regard to the amount coined. All the substitutes for money, in eIuding Government notes, checks and drafts, take their valuation from the metallic unit. Unless we suppose that the disappearance ot gold would leave such a shortage in the supply ot metallic money that its various substitutes would not be convertible, it is utterly impossible to imagine that n change from a gold to silver standard be in any sense con traction.
 Cheapness necessarily implies abundance. Silver has been get tirg cheaper-prineipally because all the great nations have expelled it from the function of final money. Consequently it is abundant for money purposes and is only wait ing to be invited back to the mon ey function. There could be no effect of contraction unless silver became scarce.
 The stock of metallic money in the United States as last estimated by the Treasury Department IS s627 ,293, POI of gold and S624,347.- ] 757 of silver. Remember that on Fly the gold is really money. The gold is the sole actual basis of cur. rency. Consequently. change to silver standard would only displace the gold and we would have all eqnal amount of silver all ready to take its place. But, per haps Colonel Leighton will say, ] the stock of silver dollars has heen