The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1896-08-04
SIXTEEN TO ONE"
tlOn.

Ol US hhO"8 NSh oASOhO NOOA AC4SA-
Dor, yourself perhaps-end note the
lack of knowledge extant. And yet in
the abstract the matter is a simple one.
1t expresses the relative value of gold
and silver for coinage purposes as estab-
Iished by the government. OF neces
sity, things that are placed in compari
son and considered, measured, esti
mated or valued relatively must have
a common character of some sort. In
the case Of gold and silver it is weight.
One ounce of silver has only one-six
teenth the value of an ounce of gold.
One unc of gold is worth sixteen
ounces of silver.
This government ratio, while erbi-
trary, is based upon something which
rests itself upon the natural laws of
commerce, the two chief conditions of
which are demand and supply in other
words, the legal ratio is the commerce.
or true ratio modified for one technical
reason or another to a small decimal
extent.
Ills AoGLO VI 4CIoL4N Ndlu0 u1S uuC-
tuated with more or less violence since
the earliest record of its existence. 1t
has been affected wholly by causes
which may be grouped under the heads
of supply and demand. There have
been temporary disturbances, such as
affect all merchandise, which have
either raised or lowered the rulirg
value of the cheaper metal relatively
to the dearer-speculation, govern
mental action, or other human action
which suspended the workings of nat
ural laws for a time. But in the main
the market has been influenced by
over or under production, by improved
methods Of mining, new mechanical
discoveries, increased transportation
facilities, reduced freight rates, and so
Cn-the usual things which figure in
the progress of the worlds commerce
Within histo ic times the value of
silver relatively to gold has greatly
changed. In ant; quity local conditions
governed entirely, there were as many
values to silver as there were countries.
Commerce gradually equal Z d these
differences.
According to the relative production
of the two metals countries appreciated
or deprecated silver. In Asia, a gold
producing country, silver wes higher
IN estimation than in Europe, of which
silver was the peculiar production
This estimation in Asia prevailed uatil
within a recent period. AS late as the
seventeenth century gold and silver
we're equally valued in Japan.
TIE earlieet record OF ratio is found
inscribed at Karnak, the tribute list of
Thutmosjs 1900 B @, giving - 33 to
1 The riCannlca tells us that the
same ratio is shown by cuneiform in
ecriptions on ancient Persian coins and
that Xanophon reported its existence
400 B Q. With the approach of the
| Christian era silver appreciated with
relation to gold In 189 B. @, both
| Greeks and Romans had a ratio of 10
to 1. Upon C83ar's return to Rome
there was a temporary relative super
abundance of gold and the ratio fell to
u to 1. A century later the ratio Of
l2b to 1 was fixed. 1t so remained for
nearly two centuries.
At the end of the fifteenth century
the ratio established by Spain was 1C4
to Half a century later, the plum
der of America being principally in
gold, the wealth of the Potoei SILVER
mines not beiog as yet known, Spain,
which country then monopolizad the
supplies OF precious metals, raised the
legal value Of gold to IS! to l.. Another
century made Portugal the arbiter, as
into it's Golfers flowed a stream of gold
from Brazil, japan and the E ast Indies.
In 1858 for the first time appeared the
now celebrated figures Is to 1. Then
came another change. The placers of
Brazil were exhausted, the Orient had
been fully p~lundered, Portugal had lost
its i'm p~ortauce. Spain again controlled
the ratio, and in 1855, her colonial pro-
duce being chiefly silver, she raised the
relative value of the white metal to
49, to 1 for Europe, allowing it to re-
main at the Portuguese ratio for her
American colonies. France had had
since 1926 a ratio of her own, IA to 1.
In 1895 she adopted the Spanish rela-
tion-153 to 1.