The Portland daily press., 1895-06-18
THE SILVER QUESTION.
The Monometa1ic and Bimetalic Schools
and their Creeds.
To the Editor of the Press:

To the Editor Of the Press:
In order to get at the very gist of the
money question, the value of gold and
silver coins, and their utilities in the
monetary system must be carefully con-
sidered 1t is at this initial stage of the
investigation, that -metalists, and
bi-metalists part company; and no COM
ing together of the contestants is possible
as long as each persists in approaching the
questions along those divergent lines. The
gold men say that the value of coined
money is the intrinsic value of the metal
out of which it is minted, which intrinsic
value the coinage is but the authoritative
certifcation. Edward Atkinson, in a
series of, so called. axloms in the Boston
Herald, has declared, that to certify the
weight, fineness and commercial, that is
the intrinsic value of the metal of which
coins are made, "exhausts the significance
of coinage" AS the value of coins, like
the value of the crude mass of the un-
coined metals capable of being used as
money, is solely intrinsic and commercial
and rigidly fixed, like that of all other
commodities, by the relation of supply
and demand, the gold devotees insist that
it is not in the power of commercial US
age however ancient, or of an internation-
al agreement, however universal, and
however well adhered to. nor of positive
law, in which, in modern times, CONNER
cial usages and international agreement
are usually expressed and confirmed, to
change the commercial values of coined
moneys, or effectually and permanently
to determine the relations Of value be.
| tween those of one metal and those of an
other.
| In this the gold advocates are strictly
| logical; and, if their first premise is
sound, their conclusions are correct and
|, for one never having been much of q
believer in halfway measures-do not
hesitate to say let us go to mono-metal-
ism at once 1t may have cost a frightful
wreck and ruin in going as far towards
it as we have, and even more in complet
| ing the consummation of it; but it is
logical; sound science demands it; and
| the sooner we get to it, the sooner the
uncertainty, the alarm, the depreciation
| and suffering will be over.
BI-METALIC THEORY.
On the other hand the silver men con
tend. that the reality of all trade being
the Interchange of commodities serviceablt
to the necessities and to the pleasures OF
men, gold and silver were at first offered
and received in effecting exchanges il
pure barter, just as cloth, corn or cattle
were Gold and silver were desired fol
purposes of ornamentation, and as badges
of distinction, the passion of the primi
| tive man for such bric-a- brac being much
The barbarian parted with his horse, his
blanket, his corn, and was content tC
| take IN exchange SO many ounces of golC
and silver, because he wanted to have
them converted to ornaments or to uten
| slls OF his sacrifcial rites, and the better
was the horse and the bigger the calf
which he proposed to give, the more Of
those metals, he exacted in exchange
The practice of using gold and silver in
barter II we did not know it from history
and from the still maintained customs
OF extant savage tribes would have been
Vouched TO us by the names of our prlnci
pal coins, perpetuated in several Ian.
guages, llbrum, livre, pound-indicatins
that that monetary denomination once
s!ood, as lt does not now, for a pound OF
silver But when the custom, at first
local, then general, finally adopted and
enforced by commercial law, to consider a
certain weight of gold, and larger
weignt ,S OF silver, as money, that is, a
medium and instrument of universal MIR.
chase and payment-then they took on.
by necessity, new functions and acquired
new values, In the presence of which theiT
commercial and intrinsic value became 4
circumstance of secondary, if not entirely
irrelevant consideration. The paramount
| qustion, If not the sole question. as tc