The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1896-08-01
OUR DEBT TO EUROPE.
A Query That Stuck Gold Standard Or
gan la the Mud.

he wrote, that our annual interes
debt to Europe is estimated at $3.50
100000 payable in gold, and tina
our total product Of gold is less thai
| $40, 100000 How can we pay oul
debts and have any gold left for 10
cal currency or redemption purposess
! In reply the New York editor wrot,
to his Georgia correspondent that
1.-THE estimate of $3.50, 900, geo for in
terest on foreign obligations is great
| ly exaggerated. But he adds that
the face value of our obligations held
abroad is estimated by '.those most
closely connected with that branch
of our foreign financial relations al
between 81, 800, 900, 600 and $1,000.
100000, and added.
Many of the securities pay no in
terest. You can form your own es-
innate of what may be the interest
payable on these stocks and bonds.
the latter paying mostly four to five
per cent. In my judgment, 500, 600
600 would be an extravagant allow
sslce, but that would reduce your es-
innate of our foreign interest pay
ments by $60,000,000. The remain
der (S60,000,000) is more than set
off by our excess of exports Of mer-
chandise over the like kind of i'm
ports. SO far from this interest in
debtedness having tendency to
drain us of our stock of gold, the
fact is, that until the treasury de
rangements of the last three or four
years, caused by the apprehension of
free silver, we have on the average
imported more gold than we have ex-
ported, causing steady increase in
our national stock of the yellow met
al. Your estimate of $4,000, 900 as
the home product Of gold, is nearly
xl5, 100000 to low. The mint esti-
mates the product for the current
year at $55, 000, 600; that of last year
for the whole country mot for part
Of it, as given in Valentines esti-
mate) was $52, 900.
1t will be observed, rejoins the At
lanta Constitution, that the able cd
itor attributes the gold drain not to
the fact that we are obliged to ship
it abroad to pay interest ON our
greatly increased foreign debt. but
to the apprehension Of free silver"
Our gold never did begin to go out,
except in response to the natural de-
mands of trade, until the fall of
prices in 1898. We had legislated
to cut down the foreign prices of our
cotton, wheat and other exports so
per cent. and this operation cut off
the movement of gold in this direc-
ton and turned it the other way.
With the balance of trade in our ia
vor the balance of debt is against
us.
The gold men predicted drain of
gold when the Bland Allison act be-
came law, But what was the re
suit? Under the additions to the
currency made by that act, prices
rose II per cent. between 1878 and
1890, and Europe was compelled to
send its gold here to pay for our ex-
ports. Why? Because we got bet
ter prices for our exports. No mat
ter which way this question is turn
ed the simplicity Of it crops out at
last. At the bottom it is question of
good and bad prices-between hon
est and dishonest prices.
From January, 1891, to January,
1896, we have shipped out of the
country not only the amount of the
whole of our own product of gold,
but $3.50, 100000 besides, all because
the gold standardists are upholding
policy that has lost to the creators
Of wealth in this country SO per cent
Of the value of his products. Under
the operations of the Bland Allison
law, small as we're the annual addi-
tions to our currency, we imported
more gold than at any other period
since the war. 1t was, in fact, due
to the Bland Allison act that the
panic of 1880, the result OF the re-
sumption act, was not worse. And
it was this law that made resumption
possible, as John Sherman admitted.