The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1896-09-05
,o,d co;nono during that neriod

shown by Mr.. Shaw, in his late gold
standard work, so praised by the gold
standard people; see tables and dia-
gram on pages 17s, 1S3 and 1s5. And I
submit that it is idle and foolish to as
sumo that the large amount of gold
money which was then in France would
remain for so many years in the hands
of the local money changers, stagnant
and still at a premium. How could
the money changers afford to pay
premium on gold, and then hold it
stagnant, and without getting any,
thing for the use of it, for period of
fifteen or twenty years? 1t is utterly
impossible. 1t would not remain at
premium for six months under such
conditions. The principal use of gold
is, and always has been, as circulat-
ing medium. You take that use away
from it, and it would fall in value in
day, until, instead of being at a prem
ium, it would not even be at par with
silver. This is necessary result,
since the use of gold in the arts alone
is not sufficient to hold up its value
when the other use is taken away.
And this answers your other propo-
sition-that it is not necessary to drive
| gold out of the United States in order
to drive it out of circulation.
We have in the United States, it is
estimated, elk hundred millions of gold
coin, one-seventh of all the gold in the
world. That gold cannot, according
to any law of finance or of reason, go
out of circulation without going out of
the country. The supposition that it
must be based upon the assumption
that reasonable men and women are
going to put away perfectly dead
property, and hold it for considerable
time without any profit from it what
ever, and that, too, at time when its
purchasing value is falling and un-
certain. The gold in the country may
60 to premium over silver. But in
the nature of things, it will not go out
of circulation unless it goes out of the
country, and if it goes out of the
country, it will go out in exchange for
silver. People, it is true, might take
their gold to the money changers, as
they say they did in France, in order
to pocket the premium. No doubt
they would do so in many cases, but
the only reason the money changers
would give them premium would be
because they, in their turn, could use
the gold money at a profit, either by
putting it in circulation at greater
premiums or by sending it to some
other country, and ndre-purchasing silver
at a profit. You can be very sure that
these money changers are not going
to buy it at premium and put it away
in old stockings. Money changers are
not hoarders of money in that way.
AS showed iu my previous letter,
there could be no sudden and large
drain of gold from our circulation
for the purpose of sending it abroad.
Because the man who holds coined
silver in England or in France, where
154 ounces or less of it are worth an
ounce of coined gold. would be foolish
to come over here with his silver and
buy gold, where it took 16 ounces of
silver to buy an ounce of gold.
You seem to have some doubt as to
the small amount of bullion silver in
existence. Senator Cockrell. in his
speech in the United States senate on
March 13, 1896, made the plain state
ment that the amount of such bullion
did not exceed 500, 1000. 600 outside that
in our own treasury, and among all the
republican senators who were present,
no one, then, or, so far as know, ever
since, has questioned that statement.
1t is true that the production of sill
yer has increased, as you say, since
1874, but it is also true that if you go
back to the production of the metals
before they had been interfered with
by the discovery of gold in California
and Australia, say in 1S49, when the
ratio of gold and silver had long been
maintained at 16 to or less, CONNER
cially as we'll as legally, we find that
the production of gold has increased
faster than that of silver, and both
metals taken together, have not in
creased as fast as the commerce of the
world and the use of money as circu-
lating medium, has increased. And
therefore the demand is now, as it al
ways has been, greater than the sup
ply, even if silver as well as gold were
restored to its primary money condit-
ion. For few hundred years prior to
1S49 the production of silver was at
ratio of from 30 to 40 to l of gold, and
yet so much more naturally popular is
silver as money metal, that during
all that time the commercial ratio of
the two was maintained at about Is or
16 to 1. Now the production of silver
is less that 20 to l of gold. It has
never reached 80 to 1 since 1S49.
Nevertheless, the gold standard money
savants claim that we cannot maintain
the old commercial ratio, which was
maintained for so long under a much |
greater relative production of
silver.
Again, you talk about the immense
impetus free coinage would give to the
mining of silver" Don't you know
that that is Inconsistent with the gold
standard position? The contention of
gold standard people is that govern
ment legislation "can't affect the value
of the metal". That under free coin
age the silver dollar would be So cent
dollar, just as the bullion in silver
dollar is now only worth So gold cents.
In other words, that the purchasing
power of the silver dollar would be no
more than. its bullion value is now.
If this be true, how could there be any
impetus to silver mining on account
of free coinage?
Then again. even if there was an
impetus to silver mining (which I say
frankly think there would be, al
though it seems to me gold standard
people are estopped from making that
yet this new-mined silver
could not possibly drive the gold out of
because if it were ex.
changed for gold, as this silver is
owned and mined by our own citizens,
it would be our own citizens who