The Mt. Sterling advocate. (Mt. Sterling, Ky.) 1890-current, 1896-04-28
GOLD UPa Or SILVER DOWN.
Sir Michael Hicks Beach's Dem
onstration that the Gold Stan
dard has Been Steady.

| the Iali In the price OF certain drtlclet
of agricultural produce is due to the
appreciation of gold Now / think Il
it were due to the appreciation of gold
surely the fall of value in the prices OF
articles would be universal and uni
form. But that is absolutely contrary
to the fact. There are some articles
of agricultural produce which have
fallen very largely. Wheat has fallen
so per cent. comparing the prices of
the decade between 1866 and 1876
with the prices between 1891 and 1895.
Other articles have fallen less--barley
80 per cent ;, oats rs per cent, wool 26
per cent. The best classes of beef and
mutton have fallen much less; NUT
ton has fallen only 8 per cent. Cheese
has fallen ID per cent, butter 10 per
cent, hay 16 per cent, straw and
poultry not at ALL believe poultry
has actually risen. May not there be
reason for this fall in prices which
has absolutely nothing whatever to do
with any question of appreciation of
gold?
"Surely the fall has been, as Mr..
William Henry Smith said in this
House nine years ago, in the articles
of which the production is practically
limited. The fact is this-that the
fall in these articles is due to foreign
competition, and foreign competition
is due, first,to ace,which has enabled
greater industry to be used in their
production; secondly, to the more eff
ficient use of capital thirdly, perhaps
to the use of telegraph; fourthly, to
the vast extension of railways in new
countries--in America, in the Argcn-
tine Republic, in Russia and in India
which has brought the produce of
these countries to the sea; lastly, and
perhaps most of all, to the wonderful
improvements in our merchantile ma
rine, in the size of ships, in the cheap.
ness of the work of marine engines, so
that, in fact, the harvests of the world
can now be brought from the places
where they are produced to the very
door of any country that may require
them almost as oheaply as ii they
were produced in that country itself.
LET me ask the House to observe that
this is true mainly and mostly of GER
tain articles. 1t is true of corn be-
cause corn is an article which is
specially adapted for production by
unskilled labor in new countries. 1t
is true of wool because of the enormous
increase in the focks of sheep in Aus
tralia and other parts of the world.
But it is not so much true by any
means of articles which require more
skillful labor to produce them or
which are more of a perishable nature.
1 think L have said something to show
that there are great and important
causes to which the fall in the price
of agricultural produce, which has
been SO injurious to the farming in
dustry of this country. is due, rather
than to any idea of the appreciation of
gold.
"But then turn to what may be
due to the tall in the price of silver.
1t has often been argued that the fall
in the price of silver has brought In
dian wheat into very serious compe-
tition with wheat grown in this coun-
try. That may be true to some extent,
but this is fact that the imports of
agricultural products from silver
using countries are now only two per
per cent. of the total amount of agri-
cultural produce imported into this
country which completes with agricul-
tural produce grown at home, and the
Indian harvests cannot be--both from
the varying amount of their eXporta-
ton and from the total amount that
could be exported-anything like as
potent a factor in determining the
price of wheat in the world as the
harvests, for instance, of Russia or of
the Argentine Republic. 1 find that
in the year 1894 only half the amount
of wheat was exported from British
India that was exported in the pre-
vious year, and l find that the amount
exported in 1894 was very little higher
than the amount exported in 1877,
when silver was nearly double the
price at which it stood in 1894. LON