The herald., 1896-09-27
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
: THE ISSUE DISCUSSED
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BY SENATOR STEPHEN NJ. WHITE

A chronic Republican fallacy h de-
tected in the assertion that this country
will be flooded with silver upon the
adoption of free coinage; that other ma
tions will create a silver monetary del
uge. The real difficulty is met not in the
possibility of too much silver. but in the
probability that we will not have enough.
In the first place. the consumption Of
silver in the arts is enormous. Senator
Cockrell said in the senate: Il chal-
lenge any man to show twenty millions
of silver bullion anywhere on this
earth" Will the flood" come from sill
yer money coined by other nations?
England has about one hundred millions
Of limited legal tender silver coin. Up
to ten dollars it Is the equal of gold;
that is, it will pay debt up to ten dol
lars as gold will pay such debt. None
of this silver money will be sent to the
United States, for every dollar Of 1t Is
required in England. About one-half Of
all the silver money in the world is IN
India and China. The Indian rupee Is
coined at the ratio Of Is to 1. 1t is the
only legal tender money in that country,
and it aggregates about 1920 per capita.
If the Indian silver money is sent to this
| country, it will be treated as bullion and
must be re-coined at 16 to 1, which will
| involve loss Of six and two-tenths on
the dollar, besides the cost Of trasporta-
| ton. In China. with all the silver now
on hand, the circulation is but little over
| two dollars per capita. There is no gold
coinage there. Germany, with some-
| thing over two hundred millions of sill
y, ,fnh ic In, ty.ov nnti he
equal of gold, cannot afford to put her
silver stock on our market. Her thalers
are coined at 15h to l, and her necessi-
ties are adequate to absorb the whole
stock. These must stay at home in any
contingency. Business sense dictates
this Therefore. the pretense that we
will have too much silver If free coinage
prevails because foreigners will inflict
a monetary plethora upon us, is folly
If all the silver of the world We're dumped
into our mints and coined as standard
silver dollars in one day. we would have
less than SAT per capita-but little more
than the money circulation of France.
Nor can we find more validity for the as
sertion that there is an over-production
Of silver. While much silver has been
produced during the last twenty years,
still, the consumption of that metal for
industrial purposes has been wonderful.
Not less than twenty per cent of the
mining output has been thus consumed.
About two billion six hundred million of
silver was produced in the world from
1873 to 1898. If we deduct the twenty per
cent used for industrial purposes, there
Is left for money uses something over
Ixtv dr,lv h,,k u
period, the world coined two billion,
four hundred and fifty-eight millions
of silver. AS to the silver or gold pro-
duction of the future, we have nothing
but surmlse. If thoughtful man will
examine the table upon page 81 of the
Treasury Circular No. 123 lately issued
by Secretary Carlisle, he will find that
the percentage of production of silver
and gold varied far more emphaticallv
before 1873 than since that time, both as
to weight and value. The table is too
long to be reproduced here, but it has
been published and can readily be OBJ
talncd. Its perusal is a complete answer
to the gold argument. Gold people are
fond OF asserting that those who favor
silver advocate fifty three cent dollar
This is false and known to be false bv
those who make the statement We
claim that the fifty-three cent dollar is
the outgrowth of legislation discrlmi-
mating in favor of gold. When the de-
monetization act was passed silver was
deprived of much OF its usefulness. No
one can dispute this. At that time silver
was fully equal to gold on 16 to basis.
There was no reason for the,demonetiza-
ton. Prior to that date silver had sus-
tanned itself. Farm produce rose in
value as silver rose. After the act Of
1879 silver went down and farm produce