The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-07-09
HOW a GOLD STANDARD WORKS


scented the cause of the decline in the
prices of commodities and the hard
times which have visited certain classes
in a manner SO clear and forcible that
it cannot fail to be appreciated by all
friends of the masses.
After calling attention to the fact that
| the farmers, who held 70 per cent of the
wealth of the country in 1860 now hold
but 25 per cent of it; that crops brought
$3.50 OOo. 600 less in 1895 than in 1891, he
proceeds as follows:
Yes. the tendency of prices is still
down grade. New competitors have
lately been found in your best market,
the market where the prices of your
breadstuff, cotton, tobacco. bacon and
beef are made, and they come into that
market with great advantages over
you-for instance. India. 1t was years
after the census of 1860, when the far
mer was comparatively the rich man
of these United States, that there was
landed in Liverpool the first shipment
of wheat from the tablelands of India.
The wheat proved to be good, and it
was known that the farm where it was
raised was a big one. The labor to
raise it could be had for 20 cents or IS
cents a day. and there was plenty of
it. At that time, early in the '70s, no
railroads, canals or wagon roads were
ready to carry wheat over from the
interior to the seabOard, and, although
the wheat could be got then for 25
cents a buSheI, it cost about 81 to get
it to the seabOard. While such state
of affairs existed there could be no
great Interference with your market.
About that time our manufacturing
industries enjoyed protection, and were
clamorous for prohibitory duties on all
| foreign made goods; Great Britain was
eagerly looking around for new. mar
ketS where she could buy and sell I'M
der easier tariff laws. At the same
time we owed to Great Britain thou
sands of MILLIONS of dollars, which we
had agreed to pay and she to accept
principal and interest, in coin, gold or
silver, as it might suit US best.
Mr.. Farmer in 1873 our government
without constitutional authority, Mr.
Blaine said, surrendered our option to
pay all our foreign Indebtedness in sill
yer. This surrender was little, if at ALL
noticed by you or any OF us at that
time as the fact was that then and for
some little time afterWard we readily
paid all our foreign debts with the sur
plus of the crops you raised, and we
had no trouble in doing SO. You got
good prices for your cereals, cotton. to-
baccO, bacon and beef. You We're fair
~ prosperous then, and we city folk
all make money when you are doing
we'll. But that surrender of our option
to pay in silver placed in the hands of
Great Britain the meag she had been
looking for to enable her TO reach a
market large enough to make her in
dependent of your crops.
Whatever work is done. or whatever
paid for in silver money.
Since 1873 England has built rail-
roads canals and wagon roads TO get
at the cheap wheat and cotton fields
of India, and last year there was land
ed in Liverpool SO, 900 600 bushels of
wheat raised on the tableIands of India,
and Great Britain paid for it with silver
money. She paid for building and Oper-
ating these railroads and canals with
silver mOney-fn 1895 she built in India
about 5000 miles Of railrDad-and to
for F1f E7rE7n and fn nd
operate these railroads we furnished her
with silver at about so cents on the
dollar of its purchasing and lebt-pay-
ing power in India. And all these facts
apply in the same manner to the enOr-
nous quantities of cotton and other
products purchased by Great Britain
in the east
At the same time she tells US: ooh,
yes, we will buy what you have to
spare-all of it-but we can't give you
any higher prices than it costs US from
India" Germany, France and other
European countries do the same, and
now the enormous debt which we owe
in all these COUNTRYSIDE England alone
five or six thousand millions of dollars
they expect us to pay, principal and
interest, in gold, or in goods in cOnpe-
tition with the silver Using countries,
where the silver dollar has the same
purchasing power as before our sur
render of its value. Gold we have not
got of our own production, and perfOrce
we must give goods. OF manufactured
&OOGS our DIluClpal GIC0IAOA ms tI4tAG
than she needs. Your breadstuff, cot
ton bacon and beef are really the only
goods We can send abroad in payment
| Of that debt. Were we now under the
same monetary standard as existed
prior to 1873 every bushel of wheat YOU
produced and sent to England today
! would, when landed in Liverpool, pay
81 20 of our debt. Now it only pays
about 10 cents of Indebtedness, and at
about the same ratio or even less is the
/ debt-payipg power OF the cotton you
raise and the price obtained abroad for
your surplus produce fixes the price
here Of all you raise.
In answer to the scarecrow raised by
the gold men that if we go back to free
and unlimited coinage of silver at the
Is to 1 ratio this country viii be made
the dumping ground Of ell the silver in
the world, let me give you some idea of
/ the enormous quantities of silver metal
| needed by European countries to carry
on their trade with the nations of the
east.
In 1851 Japan and China, with a pop
ulatiOn of three times that of the 2U0,-
600 coo of India, were opened to the
/ commerce of the world. That year
| GS51) London. then as now the center
/ of exchange for the whole world. need
ed only about IS. 000, 600 worth of silver
| to send out to settle the years trade
/ balances in favor of the east. The trade
| of west with east developed so fast
during the next u years that she (Lon-
1 dom had TO find and send to the east
I in that time 5000 GOO, 600 worth of silver,
! and 1t mad 10 be all IN sliFef, IS Inelf
| creditors would accept nothing else. So
| wrote an eminent authority in 1863, and
| ne said that If it had not been for the
/ timely discovery of gold in California
and Australia and its arrival in Lon
/ don so as to enable the purchase of sill
yer in France and other continental
/ countries, replacing the silver with gold
/ currency, a tremendous money panic
/ would have convulsed England"
| What London has had to find of sill
/ yer for the payment of the trade bal
/ ance due the east for the 80 years since
| is almost beyOnd conjecture. and the