Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1896-10-15
Condition Of the Laborer and
Business in a Land Where
Free Coinage Exists.
WHAT THE MExICANS SAY.
A Representative of the St Louis
Globe-Democrat Tells What
He Saw

where the free coinage of silver had
made everyone happy, contented and pros
porous, there has been much written by
men who had lived there and others.
The reports, which were not fatterlng
to the country, were denied by the Sill
yer advocates and branded as lies. The
silverites stoutly maintained that If Ia
Dor was as we'll employed here as in
Mexico the great question of what to do
with the poor would be solved as there
would be no poor. They claimed that
in that country there was no Wall street;
that food, clothing and the necessities
of life were cheaper; that the nation
was prospecting as it never had before,
and all on account of the free coinage
of silver.
The st. Louis Globe Democrat, wish
ing to be just in the matter, decided
to send a representative there who would
report what he saw and learned, with
out regard as to how the reports would
affect the political situation. The man
was one on whom the paper could de-
pend to tell the truth.
Extracts from some of the letters
which throw some light on the subject
of free silver and its effects are printed
below:
Prices Depend on Foreign Exchange.
Pirates on the high seas could hard
merce between nations than this tluctua-
ton of exchange between countries on
different standards. Outside of a few
mOney-changers at coast ports, business
men of the states hardly notice from
week to week the variations in exchange
between their country and Europe. But
in the business relations between the
United States and Mexico the changing
difference between the standards is
matter of hourly concern.
whats exchange today?' goes with
every mornings salutation between mer-
chants in Monterey.
"Silver's up or "silver's down" is the
commercial news of first Importance.
The shrewd representative of San
Antonio (TeX) jobbing house on his way
back 10 the states from his midsummer
round of the cities of Mexico said:
Heres a variation of DC between the
gold standard of the states and the silver
standard of Mexico within two weeks.
How is a man going to sell goods or do
any business between the countries when
he has got to make allowances for such
fluctuations. When l sell kbill of goods
to a Mexican merchant on six maa.+ra.ss..-
rrHrrons before the day 81 settlement
comes. The merchant ha @~Sot to mark
the retail prices on MARGIN sufficient
to protect him against possible change.
And so American goods must be sold in
Mexico at two margins above legitimate
profits in order to protect the American
jobber and the Mexican storekeeper
against these rapid up and down move
ments of the standards. The condition
is simply runous to trade. People will
not buy when prices are raised on them.
My house may make tremendous prOht
or barely save itself in a sale of goods on
six months time. That isn't the way to
do business. You might as well have a
Chinese wall between two countries as
AY,lf ic 10 hpt 70
will have on vastly greater scale If
the United States goes to silver stand
ard and Great Britain and the European
nations continue the gold standard. l
know what this thing of two standards
means between Mexico and the States,
and | dont want to see it in our trade
with Great Britain and Europe"
A Dollars Worth of Labor.
A dollar worth so cents commands the
same labor in Mexico now that a dollar
worth a dollar did ten or twenty years
ago. Right there is the cornerstone on
which prosperity in this silver country is
building. That is what makes it now
profitable to work mines with ores worth
81 and IS, Mexican money, ton. That
condition of labor brings the cost of min
ing and carrying out the ore down to 81
ton. That kind of labor built anC
operates the cables, which take the place
of thousands of burro trains, at a frac
ton of the cost for like construction ant
operation in the States. Gables have re
duced the cost of conveying ore from thu
mine to the railroad, two miles down thu
mountain to 20 cents and 30 cents Il ton
This labor enables railroads to haul ore
at from 80 cents to 81 a ton 1t figure
in the cost of the transportation of TIL
coke from the gulf and the coal from tn
border And, finally, it enables tn
smelters to make an unprecedentedly Low
rate of 81 a ton for treatment of ore
At every step, from the first blow o
the pick in the mine to the landing of tn
base bullion into molds at the furnace
this fXity of wages on the basis of
dollar deprecated to one-half it's value
the chief factor which insures the profit
What matters it if silver goes down if
commands just as much labor as evel
and if the lead in the bullion can sti
be sold for gold? The shelters of Mex
co buy ore from the mine owners, an
pay a Mexican dollar an ounce for tn
silver they get out of it. They paid thi
several years ago, when silver was wort
more than it is now. They still pay i
Recently, under the importation of con
petition, while silver was dropping S
rapidly in the United States, some c
the smelters of Mexico advanced til
price they allowed the mine owners fC
silver. They are now paying under som
contracts $1.06 in Mexican money fC
every ounce of silver found in the ore
IOudy lue DEICh-llldhIuS pant Ip
miles out of Monterey, on the Miner:
railroad, is shipping 100000 paving brio
to San Antonio, in Texas. 1t does tn
and pays the ad valorem duty of % DC
cent, which the Wilson tariff levies @
brick importations. The contract fl
this brick shipment was obtained
San Antonio because this company pl
in the lowest and best of tweuty-eigl
bids. The Monterey company enjoy
the possession of excellent clay. but tn:
isn't what enables it to send brick to Il
United States at profit. 1t outbid IL
twenty-seven American brick-makir
companies because it sells brick fl
American money, worth 100 cents
gold, and hires good labor for Mexica
money, worth 80 cents in gold TIL
company is paving three miles of Mont
rev streets with brick, displacing Il
cohblestones of time immemorial.
put down n block of the brick paving
an object lesson, and the governor, &c
Bernardo Reyes, with keen percepti
for good thing, ordered three miles
the same 10 begin with. The brick me-
ufactured on the basis of unchangi
wages and laid by the same will cost
Mexican money little less than I