The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1896-09-19
DEBTS AND MONEY.
The Eject of free Coinage Upon Gold
Coin Debts.

Coin Debts.
ED. TINES -MoUNTAINEER:
One of the stock arguments of the
gold standard people is that the free
coinage of silver will make it harder
for men who owe gold notes, and other
debts in gold coin, to pay them. This
is the argument: "Gold will go to
premium, and therefore the man who
has to pay debt in that money will
be compelled to pay premium, and it
will be harder for him to pay the debt
than it is now"
1t is doubtful question whether
gold will go to premium or not.
There are very many reasons for be-
lieving that it will not, and most silver
advocates believe that gold bullion
will fall and silver bullion will rise un-
til the commercial value of the two,
come together.
But suppose this should not happen,
and that gold should go to a premium
of Is to 20 per cent or to any desig-
mated premium still it is not true, that
under such conditions it will be
harder for the debtor to pay gold
debt. On the contrary, it will be
much more easy.
If gold goes to q premium at all, it
will be Orer Siluer only. 1t will not go
to premium over its present value as
measured by property. No gold stand
ard man who has been heard from, is
extreme enough to contend that the
buying ualue of. gold will be increased
by free coinage.
AS matter of fact. gold will be
much cheaper, measured IN property,
than it now is, oven if it should be at q
premium over silver. This is in accord
ance with the we'll understood law of
supply and demand. The great demand
for gold is now what makes it so high,
and makes prices so low. Silver has
been taken out of competition with it
as a primary money metal. Since the
principal use OF coined money now-a-
days is for primary money-that is,
as q reserUe for the redemption Of paper
and other token noney-when you des-
troy the use of silver for this primary
redemption purpose, it takes it out of
competition with gold for that purpose,
and the result is, that the whole bur-
den of supporting the token money of
the world-government bills, bank
paper, checks, etc.-falls upon the
limited supply of gold, and the demand
for it is thereby tremendously in
creased. 1t has become hard to get.
1t takes good deal of property to get
it, and when you say that it takes
good deal of property to get dollar,
that is only another way of saying that
prices have fallen.
To the man who owes a gold debt,
it does not make any difference how
much silUer it takes to buy gold dollar,
because few, if any. of US have silver
to buy gold with.
The question is-not how much silver
it will take to buy a gold dollar-but
how much Of my property will it take to
buy one, or how much of my property
will it take to baty enough gold dollars to
pay my debt; because it is my property
that have to sell to buy the gold with,
to pay my gold debt.
This is the keynote of the silver
mems position. When you decrease the
demand for gold, you decrease its purchas-
ing ral,te. That is, the value of prop
erty measured in gold rises, and it does
not take SO much property to buy
dollar or a hundred dollars in gold as
it did before.
Very respectfully,
SILVER.