The Portland daily press., 1895-07-17
THE SILVER QUESTION.
Free Coinage of Silver.
To the Editor ofthe Press:

| When it comes to the question of the
practical remedy of the confessed evils of
the monetary situation, bi-metallists arc
not yet in complete accord. Many of the
best instructed among them, Like Presi-
dent Andrews, who did excellent service
at the last international Monetary Con-
| ference. and is by his lectures and publ
cations now doing so much to supplant
the ignorant prejudices against silver,
| though ardently favoring bi-metallism
and believing it practicable, shrink from
the adoption of free coinage by the Unit
ed. States as likely to be attended by seri
GUS disturbances For one person, with
no pretension whatever to speak with
the authority of an expert, l confess that
| any measure, in this advanced stage of
| the discussion, short of a frank, complete,
and immediate return to the monetary
condition, that had prevailed in the
United States, from its settlement till
1878, and was gratuitously and incon-
siderately disturbed by the revolutionary
| legislation of that year, will be alike in
adequate to the perils of the situation,
and to the evident temper of the Ameri-
can people. Free-coinage may have its
perils, it's temporary, considerable, COM
mercial disturbances, but we have come
to the parting of the way into two, one
leading to the complete reinstatement of
silver in our coinage system, the other to
absolute gold -metalism, and one
or the other road we m ust and shall take
fo, Hot
crate or very large neutrality-suspicious. and
coinage Of bullion silver, has gone by.
Laws that were not in their initiation
satisfactory to either party, and that We're
persistently nullifed by succession of
presidents who had sworn to maintain
them, once wiped from the statute book,
are not likely to be restored. Nor is there
much hope that, after four sessions of a
Monetary Conference 1857, 1878. 1881,
1892 any new arguments can be adduced
to persuade the British money LENDERS,
who always control the legislation and
policy of England to forego, even in the
| interest of English agriculture, manufac-
lures, and trade, that premium on debts
and interest, which the enhanced value of
gold insures them.
TIME FOR COMPROMISES PAST.
Sir w. Houldsworth, one of the Eng
lish delegates to the Monetary Conference
of 1892, made at one of the sessions these
most significant and, as it has turned
out, prophetic remarks:
eff at the end of twelve or eighteen
months no more complete or satisfactory
and final system is adopted by the
nations, then let us realize and under
stand the consequences of our present
policy. Let us see if those are right, who
say there are no great evils impending
upon the world from the disuse of silver
as the standard Of value. If in the next
eighteen months. (the time has long ex-
pired, \ we are not wise enough to adopt
a scientific monetary system for Ethe
worlds commerce. the logic of events
will, I believe, force that system upon
us at later period.
n The financial question seems to be
passing through stages SO similar to those
through which the Slavery question
passed that the parallel must strike all
thoughtful persons. For more than fifty
years the growing abuse and disease of
our political and industrial system,
African slavery, was treated sentiment
tally, rhetorically, or. to borrow slang
of the money discussion, ACCIDENTALLY.
Palliatives, restrictions, compromises were
applied, some of them observed most of
them disregarded. Then the debate
passed from the sentimentalists, the phil
! anthrOpists and the statesmen into the
forum where the people meet to discuss
their grievances and their redress The
remedies suggested by their infallible in
stincts and driven through, by their
aroused anger were sharp and heroic but
they were terribly effective.
The trouble with the money question is
| M tO hn hat ha Fri al and
professionals who have thus far treated it
with more or less sound science, and cor
rect diagnosis of the monetary disloca-
ton, are going to persuade the application
of some dangerous remedies, but that,
tired of their wrangling, the people, who
with all their industry and economy have
not been able to make both ends meet and
find themselves sinking deeper into debt,
, growing always harder to pay, Ihave come
| to believe that depreciation of products
: is an appreciation of gold, and will take
the subsequent treatment of the case into
their own hands.
THIS COUNTRY MUST BEGIN
) ALONE
But can the United States breast the
world stream setting so strongly towards
gold as the sole standard and coined SYM
Dol of money? Why not? If France, with
population of 80, 600, 900, and the cooper
alton of a few small States and with no
prominent position either as producer,
or merchant of commodities, maintained
the parity of silver to gold at fixed spro-
portion from 1916 to 1877 and during that
time, as the best historians of finance
maintain, saved England herself, from
those losses in her agriculture. manufac-
lures and trade which only began to be
felt when the French support to the
double standard was inconsiderately with
drawn, why cannot the United States?
The United States have population of
more than 70, 600, 000 They occupy two
distinct zones of climate and are nearest
to being selfsupporting of any people in
the world, not excepting the Chinese