The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1896-09-22
EFFECT OF THE SINGLE GOLD
STANDARD UPON PRICES OF
OUR PRODUCTS.

| from his pet plan of accounting ior
the decline in the value of silver by
showing If TO be the result of over
production, he then undertakes to say
that the cost of production of silver
| has fallen since 1878 because of new
| and improved methods of mining
| When he is asked to specify a single
| invention that has cheapened the cost
| of silver production that has not cheap
| ened that of gold to an even greater
| extent, he is usually driven from this
proposition, but he always holds 1T IN
reserve to account for the fall in the
value of almost all other natural pro-
| ducts besides liver, when their value Is
computed in the now omnipotent gold
| standard Nobody but patent at
| torney of large practice could be eX-
| pected to know just what inventions
| there have been since 1878 to cheaper
the cost of the production of the ar
ticles whose value has fallen TO such
| marked and terrible degree But any
patent attorney of experience will
have no hesitancy in admitting that the
period I'M which the most important
| labor-saving devices used in developing
our natural products We're patented
was from 1850 to 1878, and yet in this
period prices rose as they have never
risen before or since.
We viii take the grain products for
an example. The Mccormick reaper,
| invented in 1884, was brought into
practical use in 1858. Between 1858
and 1873 over 5000 patents on harvest
ing machines were granted. In the
| same period all the more valuable pat
ents for threshing machines were
granted. The Osborne and Bickford
and Huffman grain drills came into
being and use in this period and nearly
all the more important labor-saving
devices as applied to agriculture re-
ceived practical demonstrations of use
fulness. According to the mono-metal-
list this should have reduced the cost
of producing agricultural commodities
and hence there should have been fall
in prices. Did it? No. The same
quantity of either corn, oats, hay,
wheat, rye or barley, which on January
| /, 1896, could be bought for S59.21
| would have commanded 500 on Janu-
| airy /, 1873. And yet there have been
no such labor-saving devices applied
to agriculture since 1878 as were put
into use in the period we have covered.
The reason for this is plain. The
value of the products of labor has not
| fallen, but the smetal in which this
value has now 60 be measured has
risen. When tho coinage of silver was
| suspended in 1873, the whole burden of
| the worlds work as money of ultimate
| redemption was thrown upon gold.
The demand for it grew out of all pro-
portion to the supply. 1t was put on
an auction block and the world went
mad in fierce attempt by each of the
| nations of the old world to corner the
precious product. It's purchasing
| power so appreciated that what would
| buy eight ounces of almost any pro-
duet in 1878 will buy pound of that
same product to-day. Tt is admitted
by Balfour, the great English states
man, that between 1874 and 1888
| period of ten years under the gold
| standard gold so appreciated in
| London that holders of the public debt
| of England could buy in the latter year
4 q 1 ~ J.a
| commodities than the same sum for
merly would have bought in 1874. The
| London Manufactures confesses that
| between 1890 and 1896 the gold
| standard has presented English trade
| with a bald gratuity of $250.000,0o0,
| and it significantly adds that the value
| of live stock in the United States has
| fallen in three years of this period
| 1922, 900, 900.
Between the years 1870 and 1884
| the United States paid off $3.50, 100000
| of her war debt, and yet so had the
| prices of beef, corn, wheat, oats pork,
| cotton. coal and bar iron fallen be-
tween 1870 and 1884, that it would re-
| quire so per cent. more of all these
| products in the latter year to pay the
! debt remaining than it would have
| taken in the former to pay the whole
of the original debt. The entire ma
| tional debt of the United States, in
Guiding the $4,000, 100000 contracted
during the civil war, could have been
| paid in 1866, with the results of the
| sale, at the then current prices, of H.
| 100000 of bales of cotton. Although
| between 1866 and 1894 we had paid over
| $2,000,o00,0O0 of the principal of this
debt, and 81, 500, 100000 in interest on
| the same-m making a total payment on
| the whole of over 1850, 900 ,000-the
| principal unpaid in 1894, at the price
| then prevalent for cotton, it would
have required 81 100000 bales to pay it,
Is it strange then that men say the
gold standard has slain its millions
while all other causes have counted
their victim by the thousands alone.
In 1866 our entire national debt-bonds,
Greenbacl1s and all-cou1d have been
| paid in 100000 900 bushels of wheat
| aft fine then o11rrant Tricpc and fh0u0h