The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-04-16
CARLISLE ON
THE CURRENCY.
CONTINUED from page y

100 cents each, did not increase the
value of the BIN grains of silver to
any extent whatever.
THE PEOPLE
could not be deceived by mere words
printed in a statute; they soon learned
that the metal contained in the silver
dollar was not equal in value to the
metal contained in the gold dollar, and
they paid silver to their creditors and
boarded the gold or sent it out of the
country
In 1884 congress determined to re-
store gold to the circulation and so
the ratio was changed to Is to /. This
was slight generalization of gold, and
immediately the situation was reversed.
Silver fed from the country and gold
came in. Early in 1862 congress, most
unwisely in my opinion, authorized the
issue of legal tender paper to circulate
as money, and the usual and inevitable
result followed.
GOLD CEASED TO BE USED
as money, and the banks and the
treasury having suspended specie pay
ments the country was flooded with a
deprecated currency worth at times
less than SO cents on the dollar. Later
on fractional paper currency was au-
this was to drive out of circulation
even the light weight subsidiary sill
yer coins, and for many years not q
single piece of metallic money of amy
Kind was used by the people, except on
the Pacific coast, where gold continued
to circulate at it's actual intrinsic value,
Without regard to the fictitious value
which the acts of congress attributed
ITO the legal tender paper
A ffn1.
mined to change the character of our
currency again by the resumption of
specie payments, the law was enacted
four years in advance of the time when
1t was to take effect, in order that
ample opportunity might be afforded
to adjust the business Of the peope to
the altered conditions. Now, however,
all the conservative and
PRUDENTIAL CONSIDERATIONS
that have usually controlled in the set
ttement OF great financial questions
seem TO be utterly disregarded and we
are confronted by an organized and
aggressive movement to destroy by "a
single blow the measure of value upon
winch all existing contracts are based.
and thus subvert the very foundations
OF our monetary system, without allow
ing single day to prepare for the
change. In the general confusion and
disorder resulting from such radical
measure, what will be the condition of
the American laborer? Will he be ben
emitted or injured by reducing the value
OF the money in which his wages are
paid, and at the same time increasing
the prices of the commodities for
Whfch his wages are expended?
After struggling for more than a
quarter OF a century, through labor
organizations and otherwise. to secure
rate of wages which would make the
proceeds of a days work equal to the
cost Of days subsistence for THE
working man and his family. YOU are
asked by the advocates of free coin
age ito
JOIN THEM IN DESTROYING
one-half the purchasing power of
money IN which you are paid, and i'm
pose upon yourselves the task of doub-
ling the nominal amount of your
wages hereafter; that is, to struggle
FOR another quarter of a century. or
perhaps longer, to raise your wages
IN deprecated currency to a poinlt
Which will enable you to purchase with
them as much of the necessaries of
life as you can purchase now: and if.
after years of contention, privation and
industrial disorder, you should at last
succeed in SO adjusting wages that
they would procure at the higher prices
of commodities just what they will
procure now at the existing prices,
what would you have gained by the
change from the old to the new condi-
tiOns?" Bi
The speaker then quoted from the re-
port of a subcommittee of the com
mittee on finance of the senate SUBJ
mitted March 3, 1885, on the course
of prices of labor and the various ar
ticles of general consumption during a
period of fifty-two years, including the
time when specie payments were aban-
doned after the beginning of the civil
war. In 1862
THE WAGES OF LABOR,
paid in deprecated paper were less
than per cent higher in paper than
when paid in gold, but the prices of the
223 articles used by the laborers and
other people in the maintenance of
their families were nearly Is per cent
higher than they were when paid in
gold"
In 1862 he said, the price of labor
had increased 1912 per cent and other
prices 40 per cent. In 1864 the advances
were 251a and 901a respectively; in 1865
ther called attention ito the fact that
during these years the government, by
its army and navy, had withdrawn
hundreds Of thousands of men from
competition in the labor of the coun-
try.
The secretary quoted from forth
coming report of the United States
minister ait Santiago on the history of
the money of Chilli for the past twenty
years and its relations to the wages of
the laboring people, which shows that
northern Chilli, where wages are high
est, will buy but about half what it
would twenty years ago.
SILVER IN JAPAN.
Referring to the fact that Japan is a
silver using country, he says:
THE Japanese silver yen is worth a
little less than 80 cents in our money,
and when the wages of labor, paid in
this deprecated coin, are reduced to
our standard of value, they appear so
insignificant that it is difficult to I'M
derstand how the people who receive
the miserable p1ttance can live and
maintain their families. The average
daily earnings of a bricklayer amount
to 33 cents; biacksmiths, carpenters and
cabinet makers receive 30 cents; COM
positors in prinNng offices, 20 cents;
pressmen, 26 cents; roofers, 20 cents;
stone cutters, SO cents; ordinary tai
lorS, 20 cents; weaverS, Is cents, and in
all the long list of occupations and
wages NO laborer, however skilled, can
be found who receives more than 49
cents per day, except porcelain artists
in r1he great city of Yokohama, who
get 72 cents. Factory laborers even
in that city where most of 1.-THE great
industries are carried on by American
and European capitalists, receive q
cents per day, and in other parts of
the country they receive less.
I'M