Birmingham state herald. (Birmingham, Ala.) 1895-1897, 1896-10-04


yer to its former bullion par with gold.
and will lower gold to its former bullion
par with silver, land the lion and the
lamb shall lie down together" Neither
will be strong enough to Cypress nor
weak enough to need the help a the
other.
When our coinage Is made free for sill
yer, as II is for gold, our $6i, 900 Of an
nual productions viii go TO par with gold
in bullion value, as it was for elghty-one
years out of the one hundred years of our
existence as a republic Europe, Asia
and Africa must have silver for the arts
and for coinage and they must get it from
the silver-producing countries. The
worlds production of silver in 1894, as it
is stated in our mine report, was $216,-
1872 200. Rating the consumption in the
arts at one-sixteenth, it Is $36, las, 700;
leaving for coinage $190,749,5 500. In 1894
the worlds coinage of silver was $113,095.-
1885, all at par with gold. The uncoined
surplus is $77 647,712. If this is rated at
so cnts on the dollar $3S, So, $50 is to be
added, to bring 1t to par with gold In
1894 we mined only $9200357 of silvr IL
we had coined $64 900 900 we would have
used the entire surplus of the world left
for coinage, except $13,447712. This di-
vided among the ffty-two powers that
have minis and coined silver for their
people in 1894. An average of $223,225
each.
If we had continued our coinage under
the Sherman law of 1890 until 1896 the
equalization between the worlds produce
ton and consumption of silver would
have been completed and free coinage
would have brought the commercial value
and the bullion value to par by reducing
If not exhausting the worlds supply of
silver bullion.
But without free coinage the price of
silver bullion would still have been regu-
lated by the governments, instead Of the
people of the world. because coinage,
which Is now under the control of gov
ernments, consumes five-sixths of the
products, while commerce controls one
sixth, and the United States, the largest
silver producing country in the world,
consents. in her laws, that the govern
ment shall mark down the price of silver
bullion to suit the convenience of their
financial policy. 1t is coinage that makes
the market for silver. and we aid the ma
tons that produce no silver, and con-
sumo $113, 100000 in coinage, and $S0,0O0,000
in the arts to fix the price at the conf
mercial value in which the consumption
in the arts is the only free competition.
If the coinage is left free to our people.
as gold is, they will take care that 1t shall
be worth as much per ounce in all coun-
tries as the coinage value is in those
countries.
Then every one who uses silver money
(and there are none who do not use it,
and none who are not compelled to use
iD will find it to his interest to put his
shoulder under it and lift it to CONNER
cial parity with gold, whether as bullion
or coin. Then our bonds and other OBJ
legations, which were made payable in
coin at the demand of the bondholders,
will be paid in silver or gold at our OPP
ton and will be entirely satisfactory to
our creditors, because the bullion value
and coin value of gold and silver will be
the same.
Mexico keeps her silver at home by
taxing the export of silver coin per cent,
and 8 per cent. stamp duty on all metals
and ores taken from the mines So that
silver for export, costs 5 per cent. more
than silver exported from the United
States. When gold and silver ores are
exported the tax is 10 per cent. ad valo-
rem The raising of the value Of our sill
yer bullion to it's coinage value is the
only way by which the competition of
the cheap labor of the eastern hemi-
sphere can be prevented from over
whelming the industries of the western
hemisphere. In Europe, Africa and Asia,
and more especially in Japan, China and
India, all labor is paid in silver, and the
limited supply of that money keeps down
the price of labor there.
At the present price of silver bullion
for which the United States government
Is alone responsible 1t Is bought here for
less than half its coinage value, as fixed
by law in those countries. A profit equal
TO 100 per cent. is made by the manufac-
turers in thus supplying our silver to
their laborerS. We can not put an eX-
port duty upon silver as Mexico does.
Our constitution Is said, by almost every
body, to prohibit such a duty. Our only
resource is to put our full coinage value
upon 1t as legal tender for all sums, and
thus compel the Oriental merchants and
manufacturers to pay for it, full price,
as they now pay for gold. Thus we can
prevent their ruinouS competition by
compelling them to pay for labor in high
priced money. AS it is. we cannot with
stand their competition. A tariff of less
than 100 per cent ad valorem cannot keep
a very large part of the productions of
China, Japan ard India from entering
our markets, while the merhants and
manufacturers pay their operatives in
coin, the bullion of which they buy from
us at so cents in the dollar. They save
100 per cent on their coinage of money
to pay here for labor, and we cannot af-
ford to overcome that advantage by In
creasing the burden of tariff duties to an
equal sum.
In whatever direction we examine the
situations, the decentralization of silver
exposes us to loss, external and internal.
and to humiliation Great Britain coins
at 15h to /, the silver she gets from us.
She coined $13090 05S in the years 1892
1894 of silver, at 151 to l, and made more
than 100 per cent profit upon 1t at our ex-
pense. Mexico in the same years coined
1874, 1863, $50 from her own mines, and by
doing so has added that much of perma-
nent, inmovable wealth to the hitherto
TORN ana dBildleu republic. III tndt tlnle
more than $SOO,O00,0O0 of our money has
gone to Mexico for investment and she
has more than doubled all of her manu-
featuring industries and lifted her ma
tional credit fully 10 per cent above its
former condition.
In the same years we have coined 500
276 out of the seigniorage our own
people have been compelled to pay to get
the silver money we are now living upon,
and our mines are closed to our mints.
our industries are still rapidly declining.
hungry people throughout our own coun-
try and all the world cry out for our food,
but have not the money to buy it, and
naked backs defame our Christian civil
izaton with indecent exposure to the
light of the nineteenth century. Wheat
at SO cents, corn at 20 cents per bushel
are too dear for consumption and are still
declining to meet the hands of humanity
lifted up in imploring mendlcancy. Cot
ton at cents-a great price-due to the
shortness Of the crop, sits down in de-
spair upon it's former throne and has no
future but beggary, while we do this we
spend more millions at so cents In the