The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1896-10-01
THE FARMER.

The farmer who is investigating by
proxy, the financial situation contin-
ues his argument this week as follows:
IF scarcity of money is responsible
for low prices will the free coinage of
silver remedy matters? Will it re-
suit in an increase of money? l find
in looking up history that when any
country has two kinds of money differ
ing in intrinsic value, that which is
the more costly goes out of circulation.
That seems TO be rule without ex
ception, and is so generally accepted
that there is no need of giving instan
ces, SO it goes without dispute. Now
we have from $5OO,0O0.O00 to $780,,
100000 in gold in the United States
which has been in circulation until it
was frightened out by this silver agi-
tation. That is pretty violent con-
traction of the currency of the coun-
try and must, in part, account for that
scarcity of money from which we are
now suffering. That gold will stay
out of circulation while this agitation
lasts And should we have free coin
age of silver it will stay out perman-
emily. What is there to take the
place of it, The countries of Europe
having silver coins which are main.
tanned at a parity with gold because
of coinage on government account,
will not send their silver coins to this
country for recoinage. because under
restricted coinage they are equal to
gold there as they are here now. The
silver production of the world would
not enable us for years to make up
the deficit, and all this time we would
be on a gold basis on our foreign trade
and on a silver basis with our home
trade, but with no gold to conduct our
foreign trade. We would be COMPEL
ed to pay a premium of about so per
cent. on all foreign balances against
US, thus taking two dollars of our sill
yer money to discharge a foreign OBJ
legation of one dollar If the balance
of trade should be i'll our favor it
would be discounted about so per
cent. The result would be that our
foreign trade thus hampered by vary
ing standards would drop off and we
should lose very valuable market
for our home products.
"We are told that cheap money is
best for us. [ see by reading history
they had cheap money during the
revolutionary war and directly after.
History says it was necessary to take
a wheelbarrow load of money to mark
ct in order to get a wheelbarrow load
of groceries. The confederate money
was cheap enough during the rebel
lion when it took 500 to buy a pair
of shoes. We had lots of cheap money
before the war. Whenever 1 bought
anything in store and handed out a
bill, the storekeeper before giving me
change always examined his bank in
spector and | sometimes had to take
80 per cent on the dollar and very
seldom did l receive 100 cents on the
dollar. That was cheap money, but I
didn't like it. Now [ have no trouble
except when some sharper passes a
bogus silver dollar on me. Store
keepers no longer run to their bank
inspector to find what the money is
worth which | offer them. When l
have money l know it's value won't
change
every day l receive new evidence
that it is untrue that the prices of our
commodities are low because silver is
not coined free. When they say
prices were good silver was not coined
at all in this country. find that the
price of wheat has advanced consider
ably within the last two weeks, while
the price of potatoes is steadily going
up. So is the price of cheese, while
the price of hay is going down. 1t
seems to me that demand and supply
are regulating these things. If the
demand for our produce increases it is
evidence either of scarcity or increas-
ed consumption. Now we cannot gov
ern the supply but improved times
will increase the consumption. If l
can help to restore good times l
shall thereby increase the consump-
ton of what / raise, thus increase the
demand and raise the price. This
seems more reasonable way than to
open the minis to free coinage of sill
YER If confidence will be restored, it
will operate just the same as if a run
on bank should stop. Money will
not be boarded up but will be put in
circulation and thus something will be
done to stop the hard times"