Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1895-12-20
EFFECT OF ORIENTAL MANUFAC
TURES.

TURES.
The following article, from the pen OF
John NJ. Devine, secretary of the American
Bimetallic league, has at the present time
especial interest. Mr.. Devine is native
of Maine and looks at things from New
England standpoint:
The recent invasion Of the markets OF
the United States by manufacturers from
japan confronts the American manufac
turer of like articles with the alternative
OF selling as cheap as the japanese arti
Giles are offered or surrendering the mar
ket to the invader.
The advent of manufactures from the
| Orient will force the manufacturers and
laborers of the United States to investi
gate the cause. and when discovered. il
will be most terrible awakening. The
fact that through their own Indifference
and creduhtv they have been committing
industrial suicide will not modify their
wrath against the politicians and pres,
| that have deceived them, or mitigate the
the terrible consequences that must fol
| low.
| When the bmetallic standard of money
was DESTROYED by the decentralization OF
silver in 1873 there became two none.
tarY standards in the world: the gold
standard for the more highly civilized
manufacturing and commercial nations
of Europe and America. and the silver
standard for the Orient. The coinage
ratio between silver and gold under the
bimetall;c standard fixed a par of eN.
change between gold coins and silver
coins. for all the world, without preiu.
dice to either: but with the closing of
the minis of America and Europe to the
coinage of silver two standards were
created, gold standard for the West
en world and silver one for the
Eastern world. When equal monetary
rights were no longer conferred on both
metals by any one of the great CONNER.
cial nations, ailording a clearing house
through winch exchange on such nation,
n made their coins of gold alone could
pass. the legal ligature was cur that had
hitherto established par of exchange
between coins of each metal whereso-
ever coined.
Silver thus becam" "A commodity in
gold standard countries aud gold a com
modify in silver standard countries.
The commodity silver in gold standard
cou tries had its quotations in terms Of
money units made of gold. The com
modify gold in silver standard countries
had ITS quotations in terms of money
units made of SILVER.
In the adjustment of international
trade relations in gold standard coun-
urieS silver exchange rises or falls to
correspond with the fluctuations of the
commodity silver: and in silver standard
countries gold exchange rises or falls to
correspond with the fluctuations of the
commodity gold.
Thus it will be seen that the destruc-
ton of the himctaliic standard. through
the arrangement of the exchange mar
ket. introduced new economic problems
with which economists were unfamiliar
aud fraught with consequences which
we charitdby assume that the authors Of
the crime of decentralization did not an
ticipate or understand.
The Oriental nations. comprising about
one thousand million of people. have
from time immemorial been on the silver
standard to which they still adhere. The
general price level in those countries has
undergone no change since 1873. on
their domestic trade relations the de-
monetzation of silver by the Western
world has had no perceptibe effect.
But not so in their international trade
relation. Under a rigid policy of eX-
cluSiveness. during thousand of years of
the struggle for exist
ence, always at the maxi mum of human
endurance, the law of the survival of
the tittest developed race capable of
subsistence on 1.-THE of what the
average worker of Europe or America
requires. But the Orientals, with fixed
habits, the result of ages of exclusive
ness, did not share the spirit of progress
and Invention that characterized the
people of the Western world, whose on
ward career has been undisturbed, till
now, by competition from that quarter.
Labor saving machinery. telegraphv,
railways aad the ocean steamship
brought In their train perpleXing prob
lens to the more progressive nations.
who now form integral parts of a gigan-
tic Industrial system.
The solutions of these problems were
without menace to con-
stantly advancing civilization and each
step In advance continued to add to the
sum of human happiness, when the
creditor interests of the world. seeking
unjust gain, struck what may prove the
fatal blow, by outlawing silver, thus de-
Stroying the bimetallic standard of
money.
Under bimetallism all the gold and |
silver of the world, coined and uncoined, |
was potentially money at the legal |
alto, and whenever exchange on |
countries coming gold alone, or silver