The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1896-10-17


1t was so years ago, and the commerce
of the world is six times as great as 1t
was at that time. In that same period
gold has only trebled.
This would seem to give color to the
claim that the increase in gold had not
kept pace with the demands of com
merce.
But another and very important
factor comes into the problem just ut
this point. That factor is the matter
of banking facilities and the use of the
medium of exchange which passes be-
tween them and their customers and
takes the place of the more bulky and
less convenient coin. Fifty years ago
the man who engaged in commerce car
rid with him the gold with which to
make his purchases. He went by stage
coach and sailing vessel, and the gold in
his leather belt lay idle weeks or months
while the tedious journey was being
made. Now he deposits his money in
bank, the banker loans given proper
ton OF his deposits to those who desire
its immediate use, and it is kept in ac-
tive circulation meantime. The owner
of the gold takes in its stead n slip of
paper. a draft or bill of exchange, good
wherever he may present it, and II he
wants more, it is transferred half way
around the world on his demand by
telegraph, in the twinkling of an eye.
The banking facilities of the world have
increased ten-fold in the past 50 years,
and instead of most of the business be-
ing done by hand-to-hand exchange
of money for property, 05 per cent. OF
the business is performed with that
comparatively new medium of ex-
change, banking paper, whose elastic
ity, convenience, and power of instant
transfer, has revolutionized business
tisnate demand for gold or other metal
lie money in the great business trans
actions of the world.
The use of this new medium of cx-
change grows nearer to the masses
every day. A recent investigation by
the comptroller of the currency showed
that nearly GO per cent. of the pay
ments made to retailers, such as butch
ers, grocers, clothiers and general deal
ers, are now made in checks instead Of
tho use of money itself. The money
which these checks represented had
been deposited in the banks by the own
ers, but only given proportion of it
was kept in stock by the bankers who
know by experience that only certain
percentage of their deposits will be
called for at one time, and are thus
al, hnp of . ba
money deposited, and so keep it in ac-
tive circulation.
Thus the stock of money, which has
itself enormously increased, is multi
piled many times by the fact that it is
used over and over again, with ten or
twenty times the frequency that it was
half century ago.
But there is one more test of the ac-
tual value of the gold, test which does
not depend upon theories or tedious in
quiry as TO quantities of money or
methods of business transaction. This
test is a simple one, but the most i'm"
portant, the most accurate and far
reaching of all those which have been
applied.
This most important of all tests Isl,
the of geidwhich- given guam
tity of labor will buy.
The real standard of value in the
world is labor. 1t is this which pro-
duces all commodities, the necessities
as well as the comforts and luXuries OF
life. The food we eat, the clothes we
wear, the houses in which we live, the
necessities which half century ago
were considered luxuries, are all the re-
suit of labor and the money which is
paid for them measures the hours of
labor which produces them. Labor is,
then, the real standard by which to
measure gold. II day or an hour OF
labor will buy less gold to-day than il
did fifty years ago, then it may be prop
erly said tina: gold has appreciated"
If it will buy more gold to-day than it
did fifty years ago, then gold has de-
rreciated, and II each grain Of gold
which an hour of labor buys will also
purchase more Of manufactured CON-
iaodities than II did fifty years ago then
the laborer has ngain multiplied the
value of his time and skill.
Let us see about that. a committee
of the United States senate, known as
the Aldrich committee. made a thorough
investigation few years ago inform
question of wages and prices, and after
long and thorough research made
report, the accuracy of which is every
where accepted. That investigation
showed that IA days labor in nearly nj!
the trades would, in 1890, buy about
double the amount Of gold that 1t dbi
30 years earlier, and do it, with less
hours of work in day. For instance,
plnsterers who, in the good old free sill
yer days OF 1910. got $l.50 per day were
paid $3.50 in 1890; blacksmiths who re-
ceived $3.50 per day in 1910, got So in
1900; painters whose wages in 1s40 were
SIPS in 1890 were paid $3.50; wheel
wrights who earned SIPS in 1910 got
$3.50 IN 1890; engineers who received
So per day in 1910 were paid S4.25 in
1890, and so on. Taking II representa-
tive classes of workingmen, engaged In
the particular industries, as basis. II
was found that the average rate Of