Birmingham state herald., 1896-06-07

seven of your once prosperous debtor states are now in; their prospects and yours are equally engulfed by the in- creasing burden of fixed debts
 l believe that not much later the most bigoted gold monometallst will be obliged to recognize the disease. Since 1873 we have so legislated to depress the price of silver that S00,000,000 of Asiatics are able to buy silver-their silver money at about half price; these hordes of ori- entals selling their product in Europe for the gold sovereign; that sovereign now sends them back, when exchanged into silver, twice as many rupees or taels or yens or dollars as was the case twenty years ago; and meanwhile all the evi- dence shows conclusvely that the value, the purchasing power, of the Indian ru- pee, of the Chinese tael, of the Japanese yen, of the dollar of the Malay peninsula, is no whit reduced. That is, I believe the burden too grievous to be borne by the industries of competing white men, although the press of the great creditor nation, England and equally of the great creditor state New York, revels in objections to this, the evident and ration al explanation to your present troubles.
 As to whether by going to free coinage your great community can maintain steady exchanges everywhere at to l6 between gold and silver, am not going to dogmatise. At Brussels found much difference of opinion MT. Herman Schmidt, whose knowledge of exchange problems entities him to respect, believes that you can. MT. Grenfell, on the other hand, thought some small gold premium in New York probable. M. RaffaloVitch and M. Fougirel two eminent economists, inclined to the view that such moderate gold premium, acting as a protective tar if, the premium falling when you had a bountiful harvest and large exports and rising in the event of harvest scarcity and a reduction of exports-that such an at1 1ta,,a aat tin for nc create is likely to be welcome both to your protectionsts and to your free traders, and if so, will obviate the neces- sity in the future for frequent changes in your tariff, consummation much to be desired. For my own part, have always believed that Lord Aldenham-then MT. Gibbs-was right when he declared in his evidence before our currency commission in 1886 that any "frst-class nation, put especially America, could go safely to free coinage. Mr. Gibbs is, as you are aware, one of our merchant princes" man whose whole life has been spent in trading with every part of the world, and to whom exchange complications are as familiar as the points of the compass to a mariner. Who is in @ position to rid icule such an authority as this? Ger tainly not the ordinary editors of daily papers, who yet continue to call that free silver" which Lord Aldenham de- clared practicable "craze.'
 A word in conclusion. On certain Monday in June, 1893, the ratio of gold to silver was as to "A; on the Friday Of the same week it was as 1 to 30; your "70- cent dollar'' had in four dave become "50-cent dollar" and why? Because the hints of a single foreign country, India (not a "frst-rate" country in point of trade), had been closed. Presumably, then, had the Indian hints reopened on that Friday the ratio would have revert ed from 1 to 30 to 1 to "A before the follow ing Wednesday. Now let me ask those who object to free coinage in the United States, what would have been the effect if on that same Wednesday you had opened your hints to the free coinage of silver? If India, single-handed, had been able to raise the ratio 20 per cent this Is, from to 30 to 1 to 24, by free coin age, would not the additional support of the United States have carried the ratio ito to 16, a. raise of B per cent more; and
 if the United States could not have ac- complished this through free coinage,
 will somebody explain why?
 The great difficulty, am aware, as to | this silver question Is to divest mems
 minds of their furious prejudices It is | by playing upon the prejudices and pas | sions of honest and honorable men that | the one class, now becoming rich and | powerful by the misfortunes of the other | classes, has been and still is able to l thwart every measure of monetary re- l form. I am painfully aware of this diff 1 fculty which confronts us, because never l having studied the question I was for | some years so fully convinced of the soundness of the gold theory that could
 not bring myself even to consider the ar- 1 guments of my then opponents, the bi- meta1lists. Believe me, yours very faith l fully, NORTON FREWEN.
 The Hon. R. P. Bland, Lebanon, Mo. |