Birmingham state herald. (Birmingham, Ala.) 1895-1897, 1896-05-03

compel them to abandon their undertake
ing, and how much stronger is the Chi
nese position when it IS known that Brit
ish capital is bound up with that of ma
tive manufacturers in China"
The report further says that the dam
ger to China and Japan is "the reversiofil
of western nations to bimetallism." In
the opinion of these oriental British mer-
chants, 1.-THE early restoration of silver
would deal severe blow at oriental en-
terprise." They think this danger would
be only temporary, as under any cir
cumstances in the course of time the
home market must be supplied by home
manufactures, especially is a protec-
tive tariff should be established.
At present the gold standard of the
western nations acts as protective tar
iff to the Chinese and Japanese. This is
very clearly shown in the following para
graphs from the American, one of the
ablest of our exchanges:
TO the ChinamaE the tael, worth to-
day but 81 cents in gold, is worth just as
much as the tael worth $1.61 in gold in
1884, and he is willing to part with just
as much OF his labor and of the products
of his labor for the taeI today as he was
for the tael worth nearly twice as much
In gold tWenty-three years ago.
The Chinaman looks upon his stand
ard of values as fixed and invariable,
just as we are prone to regard gold as
an Interchangeable measure of value, and
While we speak of silver as worth but
half as much as 1t was In 1873, the China
man regards gold as worth twice as
much. Consequently the Chinaman is
willing to pay only half as much in gold
for goods of British and American man.
hn in hi
over half the price asked for articles of
European and American manufacture by
the British or other merchant he regards,
and rightly, as in. increase of price. The
tael costing the Chinaman just as much
exertion to obtain as ever, he naturally
hesitates to pay the enhanced price, and
as the cost Of the materials for manu-
facture In China is the same as ever, and
the cost of labor no greater, he is at
tracted by the enhanced price, holding
out to him the prospect of large profit,
to enter into the manufacture for himself
of the goods he has been in the habit of
buying from abroad
The cost of manufacturing in gold
standard countries, in England, in Ger
many, in America, has not fallen equally
with the fall in the gold price of silver,
and consequently manufacturers, al
though asking considerable less in gold
for what they, send to China for sale, are
obliged to ask more in silver. And this
enhancement of price acts as a protec-
tive tariff, an iron-bound automatic pro-
tective tariff, around all silver using
countries against gold using countries
Our manufacturers, like the manufacture
ers in all gold using countries, have to
provide for the payment of certain fixed
charges, OF rents, taxes, interest, for the
satisfaction of which they must part with
greater and greater quantity of pro-
duce as prices fall. Then too any at
tempt on the part of manufacturers in
gold countries to cheaper production by
reducing wages Is strenuously and prop
erly resisted by the wage earners, for.
as retail prices, at which the Garner
spends his wages, are the last to fall,
any reduction in wages at all commen-
surate with the fall in wholesale prices
means lower plane of living and in
creased hardship, IL not actual suffer-
ing, -.s.@- --s
For these and other reasons the man
ufacturers in gold using countries have
found 1T absolutely impossible to reduce
prices proportionately with the fall in
silver, To some extent, indeed, they have
reduced gold prices, but to realize a
pound sterling, they are obliged to sell
goods in China to the value of taels,
where they had to sell goods of the value
of but 8 taels in 1873. And taels, or even
Az taels the Ghinaman will not pay ST
he has taken to manufacturing for him
self, encouraged by the protection that
the gold standard countries, by their
suicidal policy in discarding silver, have
held out to him. Under the disadyan-
tages imposed by the gold standard, the
white man is finding it more and more
difficult to compete with the yellow man
and the white dollar"