Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1896-05-19
M'FLEARYS SPEECH i.
DemoIishes Free Coinage Fallaeies- -Fscta
 About Prices.


 About Prices.
 The Congressional Record of March 27 contains a speech by J. T. MeCleary of Minnesota against unrestricted coin age of silver, which is the most thor ough entertaining and convincing dis cussion of the silver question NC have seen. Every aspect of the question is presented. Every argument of the hon. est believer in free coinage is patiently examined and demolished The vice of the free coinage advocate, it is shown, is that he picks his facts ignoring such as do not favor his argument. He does not see the whole truth, but only so much of it as suits his purpose. The silverite begins usually with the state- ment that there has been q ruinous fall of prices, beginning with 1873, when silver dollars were excluded from free coinage, and that tho decline of prices was due to the exclusion of silver. But if he would consider the history of prices before 1873 he would find that the recent decline began in 1865. The fall between 1865 and 1873 was larger than that between 1873 and the present time, though the mint was then open to silver. But this was not the first period of low prices during tho present century. Iii the period from ISIS to 1852, while the mint was open to sil- yer, there was a fall in average prices practically the same as that which has taken place since 1873
 The price of silver before 1878 did not decline along with that of other commodities, as 1t has done since 1873. Silver was not then their faithful com panion, but held itself aIoof from the general tumble. Between 1909 and 1865 there was a tremendous fall, followed by a tremendous rise of prices of com modities, but silver hardly varied And there is not now-more than before 1873-any connection between the price of silver and the price of other things.
 The decline of prices has net, how ever, been universal. Ithas been large i'll articles worked by machinery, as textiles, minerals, manufactures, etc, but it has not been large, as a rule, in products ef agriculture, tropical products. animal and fish products, etc Thereduetion of transportation rates has lowered tho price of wheat phenomenally st the points of consumption, as ill the cast and ill England, but the price obtained by the farmer of the northwest has not been materially changed. Beef, butter, eggs and similar articles have not fol- lowed the downward course of silver. even at the points of consumption. There is one commodity which is dealt in, bought and sold, more universally and ill greater volume, 1t may be said, than all others put together-labor. If it has not fallen in price, it is folly to say that there has been sa general fall of prices -dg1e to the characterization of silver. And it has not fallen. On the contrary, wages have advanced, and the wages Of 1890, with silver demonetized, exceeded by 58 per cent the tbimetallic' wages of 1860. In purchasing power the wages of today exceed those of the earlier peri cd by 72 per cent.
 Much is made by silverites of Freneh bimetallism, but Mr. MeGleary shows that France did not, by her law of 1903, as q matter of fact, sustain for TO years her legal ratio of 155 to 1o as the commercial ratio of the world. The price fuctuated, notwithstanding the law Nor did France ever have the con- current circulation of silver and gold. From 1920 to 1850 France had only sil- yer and from 1850 to 1865 only gold coin i'll circulation. It was not the French legal ratio that kept the conner cia1 ratio near 1545 to from 1903 to 1878.
 In concluding his telling speech Mir McCleary. himself 9 proteetionist. de- nounced the Pennsylvania protectionists who are going in for the free coinage of silver because they may thus reduce American wages to the level i'll Mexico, Japan and other countries on the silver basis. is.-Baltimore Sun.