Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1896-01-15

stimulus thus afforded were developing
their cotton mills until they now sup
ply the Asiatic demand for cotton yarn,
England was purchasing the wheat and
cotton of India paying the same price in
silver as before 1873, and laying the
same down in Liverpool at a cost to
them in gold as much below the price
OF 1873 as silver bullion had fallen be-
low the mint price under free coinage.
1t must be borne in mind that the cost
OF commodities, that is, the material,
labor, 1and-rents, and interest on capi-
tai, together with the profits, must be
reckoned in the money of the country
where the goods are produced, and that
they are always paid for in current
money Of the country where they are
sold
II goods are produced in the United
States and sold in Japan sufficient sill
vel must be received for them, that
when exchanged for gold it will cover
the cost and the profits, likewise that
II goods are produced in Japan and sold
in the United States, they can be sold
for just sufficient gold, that when eX-
changed for silver it will cover the cost
and the profits.
Under bimetallism it was shown that
neither country was benefited or in
tured because of the metal comprising
the current coin, but it will be readily
seen that under existing conditions, the
advantage is on the side of Japan and
against the United States to the extent
of the fall in silver exchange below the
tate that prevailed prior TO demoneti
cation in 1873.
With thousands of years behind us
| dur ing which the Mongolian nations
manifested no disposition toward COM
mercial exploitation, but on the con-
trary resisted every innovation upon
their long established modes of life,
content with selling other nations the
few articles of manufacture, peculiarly
their own, and such products as soil and
climate gave them a natural monopoly,
there is no good reason for believing
that this sleeping Giant of the East
could have been aroused from his slum-
bers by conditions less extraordinary
than were presented by the exchange
after the manufacturing nations
adopted the gold standard.
Agriculture in gold standard coun-
! tries suffered first. The wheat and cot
ton from India in the Liverpool market
keeping step with the fall in Rupee ex-
change soon cut the price of the world s
crop in two and destroyed the profits
and deprecated the property of the
producers in all gold standard coun-
tries.
The only reason why the manufac-
turers and laborers in all gold standard
countries have not suffered a worse
fate than has overtaken the wheat and
cotton growers, is that the Asiatic ma
tions did not have competing articles to
offer.
Silver in the Oriental nations con-
tinues to purchase raw material and
labor as cheaply as at any time in the
past. These over-populated nations
containing one-half the human family
perpetually on the verge of famine, the
frequency and fatalities of which have
developed and intensified a universal
system of boarding constantly trench
ing upon the coin in circulation, has
had for thousands of years and still con-
tinues to have a wage rate barely per-
mitting continued existence to the
teeming millions of toi}ers.
Before silver was outlawed in the
Western world fifteen and half ounces
of silver in the Orient paid for COM
modities that cost an ounce of gold in
the Occident, but at the present time
1t requires thirty-one ounces of silver
to purchase the product of an ounce OF
gold.
Upon wage in silver barely sufR-
cient to continue life the alternative to
the toilers of Asia was to manufacture
for themselves the articles formerly
imported from America and Europe OF
forego their use altogether.