Birmingham state herald., 1896-06-07
A nE11RERArE FRAUD.

The old cry of international agreement is beginning to be heard again in the land among the single gold standardists. About the time Col. Josiah Patterson in- formed the country that he had literally stamped the free silver craze out down in Mississippi, and the metropolitan press in the east ceased to discuss the financial question, because, according to their diag- nosis of the case, the silver craze had died and been inferred, the gold standard bi- me.allists grew bold indeed. They felt assured that things were all their way, and promptly from that quarter the peo- pie were informed that international agreement was thing that could not be had. Surprise was expressed by gold standard papers that anybody should have ever given the subject of interna- tional agreement any serious considera- ton. But now having found that the free coinage craze-as they are pleased to call the demand of the people for a re- turn to bimetallisn-is not only not dead, but is the very livest issue in the land, they have begun again to talk of interna- tlonal agreement. It appears that some of them are cherishng the hope that they may be able to get the Chicago conven- ton to put something in it's platform about that myth of myths.
 Tn renewed talk of the advisability of -our calling 8 halt and asking "Hingland" what we should do brings forth the fol- lowing from a writer in the Daily Finan- cial News a paper published right un-
 der the shadow of Wall street:
 "The international agreement evasion is deliberate fraud. England's consent
 ;, al hot En0 n6 twenty-five years based all her expansion
 in banking and shipping, her two most
 important interests, on gold standard
 for Europe and the United States and
 silver standard for Asia and spanish America With control of the worlds in-
 ternational banking and shipping, she
 can play 50 cent money in cheap labor
 countries against dollar money In dear
 labor countries. To keep this policy in
 progress she has sacrificed her agricuftu-
 ral interests and left her manufacturing
 interests to shift for themselves, because, combined they were of far less impor- tance than her banking interests and car rying trade. Having created ASlatlc com petition that must eventually bring Eu- ropean and American manufacturing to the Asiatic level-a slavery level for us | 1t is too late now to turn back ana lose her greater interests without saving the smaller ones. England would rather lose India, Canada and South Africa than 10 sacrifice her twenty-five years ot expan- sion in banking and shipping, for they give her the commerce of the world. h. ternational agreement is an absolute i'm possibility and known to be by those who | talk about it and seek to deceive the peo- pie.
 "England's chief weapon in her warfare | upon us is cheap silver. With It she mas l robbed one generation of our people of l their blrthright of prosperity by the frlc- 1 ton of contraction in retarding our ener- l gies and the production of steady de- 1 cline in values of all commodities. Our 1 own folly gave her that weapon when we discarded silver We have only to open | our hints to free coinage of silver to take l that weapon away from her. And more, l to turn il against her. We can take from her her present Spansh-American trade. We can check Asiatic competitions.