Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1896-02-06

stitute, proposed for the bond bill of the
House of Representatives, the govern
ment will be required to run in debt, for
what 1t does not want, and to give its
notes for an Indefinite amount of silver,
limited only by the annual product of the
whole world. and at fixed cost of twice
its commercial value, or at the rate OF
s1.% per ounce. instead of its present
value of 81 cents per ounce
If our late investments of nearly five
millions In silver have been VIGOROUSLY
improvident and Improbable. the disas-
trous results will appear as a drop in the
bucket when compared with what must
flow from the enormity of the present
proposal, which is to open all of our minis
to the free coinage not only of our own
silver product, but that also Of all the
world, excluding nobody from Dan to
Beersheba, and to tempt a great increase
of the annual product both at home and
abroad by Offering United States oblga-
lions for 1t at double the sum it now
commands In any other market.
The vast product. whether in silver bull.
lion or silver dollars once in the posses
sion of the government must stay there
forever, defunct as an Egyptian mummy,
as the public long refused to aid in its
larger practical circulation.
If any individual spendtiirift were to
make a like exhibition of incapacity to
manage his financial affairs, there Is not n
court of any State having jurisdiction of
tho subject that would refuse, IL asked,
the appointment Of a guardian.
Whenever the issuance of deprecated
money is tolerated, so as to permit an in
crease of the amount outstanding, as Is
proposed by the silver free coinage sub
stitute for the bond bill, now under con-
sderation, a further memorable deprecia.
ton of such money must follow, as our
own recent unhappy experience sufficient
ly demonstrates. When we began to coin
silver dollars in 1878. silver was worth
S1.20 per ounce. and the silver In our dollar
was worth 80 cents. and has been growing
less month by month ever since. Silver is
now
WORTH CT CENTS PER OUNCE.
and the amount in the silver dollar is
worth 80 cents only. 1t fell under the act of
1878 and continued to fall to a lower depth
under the act of 1890.
That was the result of an honest effort
of the United States government alone to
prop up the value of the worlds silver
money, and the dollar had a further drop
from % cents to SO cents.
The United States since 1878 has bought
459, 9i6. 701 ounces of silver, for which siGi,-
210, 2G2.96 has been paid. but its present
value Is only 1909, 53G. 11S.17. which shows a
loss on the part of the government of Sl54,-
CAT, 1879.
This is the outcome of our years of bitter
experience in the vain attempt to increase
and maintain the ancient value of silver.
No other nation yet appears willing to fol-
low our example in this line of national
policy.
We have more than once during this de-
bate been warned of the danger to which
we may soon be exposed by a flood of
mi prta cd fro Tn
dia. China and Japan, where cheap wages
are paid laboring men in cheap silver, and
strange as II may appear to sane men we
are now seriously urged to adopt the free
coinage of silver in order to equalize fl
nancial exchange, so as to compete with
these Oriental artisans who are blessed
with hardly a 1.-THE, certainly not one
fourth of the American compensation, and
appear to be contented with silver money
at about half of its face value. To me this
looks only as the first step in equalizing
the wages of labor instead of exchanges.
First, 1t is proposed to establish the sill
yer standard of money, and unless this
is to be followed by the Asiatic standard of
wages also, it is difficult to see how these
coming rivals are to be checkmated by our
free coinage of silver.
In Mexico any of our money, being
equivalent to gold can there be exchanged
for isbout double the amount in Mexican
silver, with which cattle can there be
bought at less cost than in the United
States. But the contention here that a
gold standard of money fixes low prices
for all products and that silver standard
fixes high prices can not be true. Wheat
is bought for silver rupees in India and
sold probably in England for gold.
The largest share of our imports come
from Europe and Great Britain, and IL we
get such imports at low prices in conse-
quence of their gold standard. so much
me better for us. But we
ton we meet in selling agricultural
products and provisions abroad arises
from countries using a silver currency
only, where they are destitute of skilled
labor. and where cheap wages prevail. A
market abroad for any surplus of wheat
or corn, beef or pork, only occurs when
the United
STATES CANNOT UNDERsELL
the rest of the world Therefore the home
market should be preserved. The price
of cotton will not be fixed here until we
are able to manufacture the major part of
the crop at home. Asatic competition
can only be met by an American tariff, and
cannot be overcome by providing low
standard of money to pay for whatever
we have to sell.
The absurdity of free coinage as a pro-
lection against oriental industrial rivals
cannot well be concealed. We might with
almost equal proprety be invited to in
troduce an Asiatic plague, and have it
just as logically urged, on the grond
that 1t has long prevailed in Asia and
yet they have not all died there. Instead
OF remedy. free coinage of silver would
be an aggravation of a sorry condition,
offering, as 1t would, to American wage
earners Il standard silver dollar, though
known to be deprecated to half of its
former value, and forcing the American
people to accept that deprecated standard
OF money for all OF their immense annual
productions.
The feeble pretense that the free coinage
OF silver dollars on the present ratio of
l6 of silver to / of gold would not deprive
silver money OF its parity with gold never
became respectable by it's repetition, and
Is no longer serviceable even in the sup
port of wild and ponderous experiment.
Sevon hundred grains of pure silver may
be had in any market for 81, and when we
are fanatically urged to coin silver legal
tender dollars containing only 37lA grains
Of pure silver obviously 1t must be ex-
pected that some people are to find pleas
ure in being cheated, as we'll as those who
cheat. The proposition is to set up a
standard Of silver money worth but half
its nominal value. and then look in the
face of our creditors and claim to be
honest. You may have a good reason
said DR.. Johnson, why two and two make
a.sA 1tt tlaANF