Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1896-09-16
THE LAST CHAPTER.
THE CRIME OF 1893 AS SEOUAL
TO THE CRIME OF 1893.
One Followed Logical Result of
the Other. Unequal Competition with
India. The Remedy


One more chapter in the story Of sill
yer decentralization has yet to be told.
For twenty years after 1873 the Indian
minis were kept open to free coinage
and the financial management of the
trade of the whole East rapidly con-
centrated in the hands of the inter-
national banking syndicate. The
organization bought the American sill
yer product as fast as it reached New
York at prices established daily in
London And consigned the same to
their agents in India, who took it to
British minis. There it was coined
into rupees at the ratio of Is to l Tor a
valuation of Sl.33 per ounce) and these
coins being by Indian law legal tender
were used in paying the agents of the
Asiatic producer for all they had to
sell OF course as the price of silver
bullion declined the profits of the
transaction increased Along about
the native Indian merchants of the
large cities, began to understand what
was being done. and one by one ar
ranged their business SO hat they
we're able 10 insist upon payment for
the produce they handled in bar silver
instead of coin, which bars they them
selves took to the Indian minis for
coinage thereby transferring much of
the profits of the business into their
own hands. AS soon as this custom
became well established the English
began to open branch houses and
branch manufactures in the east, and
entered into vigorous competition in
HindOstan with the native trades. At
once the business of the large English
and European manufacturing towns
began to suffer, and as the local indus
tries of Asia advanced and those of
England and Europe declined the
profits of the international banking
syndicate became less. Something
had to be done. Prices of raw material
all over the world were falling so rap
Idly. in consequence of the competi-
ton of the Indian producer, who not
only by reason of his industrious and
frugal habits could produce at low
cost, but who in addition was being
compelled to take his pay in a coin
that cost the maker thereof much less
(now scarcely one-half) than the nom
lnal value at which the law enabled
him to pay it out, that one of the lead
ing banking houses of London, dealing
in South American produce went to
the wall in 1890. and a great inter
national panic was only prevented by
the combined action of the European
continental bankers. in coming to the
support of their London associates.
In 1898 the remedy was adopted
of closing the Indian minis to free
coinage. Dnder the system now in
force, the Indian government alone
buys silver for coinage, paying the
market price and coins this as bought
at the same ratio as be fore ($1.33 per
ounce and sells these coins to the
highest bidder for the produce of In
dia. This has caused the bankruptcy
Of the nation, but apparently for a
time has saved the international bank
ing syndicate from the same fate For
the Indian government is under the
control of the b itish government, and
the latter as well as that of Germany,
France, Italy, Austria and the United
States, is completely controlled by the
international bankers, represented in
each important money center by a
group of its leading financiers, who
are protected by the rules of the state
who in turn have life made easy and
pleasant for them by the men who
manage the financial system of the
globe.