The Roanoke daily times. (Roanoke, Va.) 1895-1897, 1896-07-04
STATEMENT BY HENRI CERNUS-
CHI
r'hy the People of the United States
Should BE for the Free Coinage of Silver.
L..

ny the People OF the United States
fPhonld BE for the Free Coinage of Silver
From the Paris. Economists.
II nave always combatted the uncom-
&promlsng silver men of America who Mt
pottom are really silver monometallists,
because, from the scientific point of view,
fheir doctrine is as fallacious as that of
Hfhe gold monometallists.
81 The adoption of the free coinage of
silver by the United States alone would,
NJ Is true, increase to Il formidable extent
the contingent of silver monometallic
&countries, but would not Immediately
Sbring about true solution of theproblem
8that international bimetallism has in
#Vlew-namely, the instantaneous fusion
8of the two monetary standards in Il single
international money by the establishment
4 OF fixed parity of value between gold
] and silver
with silver recommendation in the
! United States, the war to the knife be
tween gold and silver will agitate for
many years yet the civilized world, and
you know rs well as do that the results
of this struggle will be disastrous to
those European countries which are at
present living under a single gold stand
ard, and in particular to England and
France.
81 have always been the adversary of
4 the out-and-out silver men of America.
4 that is to say, the party which demands
the free coinage of the silver dollar in
the United States without reference to
the action of European nations because
their monetary conception is diametri-
cally opposed to mine. They are mono
metallists, like the monometallists of
4 the city of London, and the triumph of
] their cause so far from putting an end
to the monetary anarchy in which the
i world has been writhing since 1878 will
\ merely accentuate it, in rendering more
4 burdensome for Europe the economic CON
sequences of the diverge.
But if were n citizen of the United
States and were convinced that Europe,
by reason of England S attitude is fixedly
hostile TO the establishment of n stable
monetary parity between gold and silver,
\ obstinately rejecting all ideas of interna-
tional bimctallic agreement then / should
cease to be an international bimctalliSt-
which nearly all my friends in the United
States are--and should go over unhesita-
tingly to the camp of the silver men.
LAS matter of fact, in its present
economic situation, the United States of
America, that great and youthful nation,
suffers much more from the merciless
conflict that has been in progress be-
tween gold and silver since 1873 than
~
= of the rest Of the world, possessing re-
sources of every kind and enormous finan-
clal reserves, which enable her to endure
with comparative ease the economic com
petition of those nations whose monetary
standard is deprecated in regard to gold,
like the countries of the far East Mexico,
the Argentine Republic, etc
The United States of America on
the contrary, are debtors to Europe for a
Nf Il,
ployed in the development of their indus
trial system, and must necessarily liqui
date their debts abroad by realizing upon
the products of their soil and of their
manufacturers
''Now, as these foreign debts are, on
the one hand, contracted in gold, and as,
on the other, American products in
Europe have to reckon with the depres-
sing competition of similar products eX-
ported by countries having silver stand
ard or paper money, it follows that the
appreciation of gold, in regard to silver,
that has taken place since 1878. has had
two-fOld result in the United States
which have remained faithful to the
single gold standard since that date
namely: % 1t has diminished by half,
on American territory the value of gold
of all the national products which are
subject to the said competition; and (2)
it has doubled the real burden of the
debts contracted abroad in gold. since
double the quantity of American products
is now required to discharge the annual
liabilities arising from those debts.
The native products of England have
evidently felt the depressing influence
of the same competition with similar
products from countries whose monetary
standard has been deprecated in regard
to gold; and in this respect English
agriculturists and manufacturers are
prejudicially affected in the same way as
the agriculturists and manufacturers of
the United States. For this reason an
understanding between the two countries
looking to the re-establishment of the
equilibrium between the two monetary
standards, and the maintenance of a
stable parity of exchange for the future,
was logical, reasonable and desi rable for
the world at large.
But, if the interests of English agri.
culturists and manufacturers are seri-
ously affected by the competition of coun-
tries having deprecated monetary
standard, the exterior finances of the
United Kingdom do not suffer thereby,
since England has no debts contracted
abroad, and in this respect at least, the
English escape that particular evil from
which the finances of the United States
of America suffer so cruelty
Furthermore England being n large
creditor of foreign countries. the London
bankers can argue-as Sir William Har-
court did in so categorical u manner in
his speech of the 18th of March last in
the house OF commensurate English
capitalists recover, by the increased pur-
chasing power of the gold dine them from,