The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1896-09-10
The Standard of Value.

To THE EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL: The
standard of value, whether single, double or
thrible, is made by the force of circumstances
and not by legal enactment The most that
legislation can do or has done is to adopt or
acknowledge the measure of value that the
natural laws of supply and demand have es-
tablished. The measure or standard OF
value may be explained by the following
Illustration You have a measure made Of
tin which will hold just quart of milk or
other liquid, and if there were no other kinds
of material used to make quart measures the
tin quart would be the standard, but if |
should have measure made OF wood that
would hold the same quantity of grain then
it would be equally a standard quart meas
and the two together might be called
the double standard of measure though the
tin quart would be more suitable to measure
liquids in than the wooden one, and vice
versa. But in fact the wine measure which
is usually made of tin is not 50 large as the
dry measure which is made of wood and if
| should measure out grain to you in a wine
measure you would say the dry measure is
the standard and you must make up the diff
ference to me by a guarantee or by some
equivalents Or we may take piece of iron
and put into scale which viii weigh a
pound of any material not too bulky in the
other scale, and that piece of iron is stand
ard measure of pound, but much smaller
piece of lead may be used in one scale to
balance the same pound Il She other scale
and when you have them both they may be
called double standard of weight. Lead ,
however, might be more convenient with
which to weigh very heavy material like
gold as it would take up less space in weigh
ing large quantities of gold as they often do
in New York or Boston banks. There might
be an insane man, or Populist-D Democrat
who would be absurd enough to ask why
they did not use iron instead of lead to
weigh the gold and thus have a larger
amount of iron used for weighing purposes,
but l cannot believe that he would think
that by using smaller pieces of iron and
more in number to weigh the gold with, it
would make the gold heavier or lighter.
The standard of value asserts itself Just
as naturally as the weight of the gold does
and cannot be changed by law only in name.
The difference between the two parties on
the money question is that the Republican
party proposes to accept the gold standard,
made 50 by the force of circumstances, and
stand by it as the single standard until by
agreement between civilized nations the sill
yer may be put much more in demand for
coin and the ratio between that and gold so
arranged as to make it equally with gold a
measure o. value. When that is accomplish
ed we will have a double standard and not
before. When silver was above par it was
the single standard, but the free silver party
proposes by enactment of law to declare
that which is not standard of value by
natural law to be such notw ithstanding and
they would have no better success if they
should gain control than the king did who
placed his feet at low tide upon the seashore,
and said to the sea, thus far shalt thou go
and no farther. When the sea came up over
him and would have engulfed him he had
sense enough to retire and save himself
from certain DEATH N. B. MILLlKEN.