Delaware gazette and state journal., 1896-02-06

Niolnth anu IOOu anu bboltoly w ulfdn
the largest possible amount OF all those
things; and that is why feel con
strained to oppose the proposition that
by cheapening money you are 10 raise
prices without any promise that the
wage of labor is to be raised at tho
same time and by the aamo measure.
Mr.. President, not alone by railroad
transportation is the production OF
food at the command of every part OF
the world. Steamships made of steel
and of enormous and increasing carry
ing capacity are making common high
ways of the deep. The grain OF America
is carried in six to ten days to the
markets where you supply the hungry
mouths that wait for il and the teem-
ing millions that stand ready to buy
it in the Old World. But at the same
time, in competition with this grain
and food producing power Of America,
the steamship and the railroad have
not been idle in other parts of the
world. Russia has been and is
being every day more opened up
as source of supply. The cotton
fields of Egypt and of India come
into competition with the cotton of
America. How are you going to remedy
that state of things by legislation here
in the United States? How, by any
such puny measure as this, can you
expect to thwart and interfere with
and turn back state of progress like
this, produced by causes so powerful
as those have described?
! do not deny that the prices of agri-
cultural products are low, but | have
attempted to show-and if / have not,
it will be plain, upon the mere sugges-
tion, to every thoughtful mind-.that the
true cause of the cheapenlng of agri-
cultural products has not been the act
of 1873 or the ceasing of coinage by
France or the decentralization Of silver
by Germany, but it has been because
of cheaper and increased production
production that has run ahead of de-
mand, and which has operated, as it
always will operate, TO influence price
and bring down the cost to those who
consume.
If this be so, then the Senator from
Arkansas, who has already, with the
candor | have described, admitted that
such decline of price is not to be
objected to, must either reform his
argument or in sheer benevoence to
the mass of the people whose living he
would make little harder and whose
struggle for existence would be made a
little more sewers vote against the
measure he has advocated.
Mr.. President, not only have we
steamship lines with increasing carry
ing capacity over the old sailing ships
but the improvements in the steam en-
gine every year have been giving more
and more carrying capacity 10 the hull,
and there has been such economy in
the use of coal over the old lever en-
gine, in the triple and quadruple OK
pansion of steam, that its consump-
tion has been reduced to something
like one-fourth or e-fifth of what it
was formerly. The possibility of larger
freight space, the greater celebrity with
which voyages are made, one iron chip
of 10000 tons, with its precious bur
den, making eight trips whore an old
sailing ship could only make one--is
that to have no effect upon prices? No
famine can exist now in anv spot upon
the earth's surface. Thank God for the
beneficence of these civili2ing inhu
ences Of modern inventions and modern
enterprise, the whole world is drawn
upon, and when there is scarcity of
grain in Russia, as there was year or
two ago, the ships of this country sped
across the Atlantic with the surplus
product of this country, bought or con-
tributed by warm hearts that are always
ready to respond to the cry of distress,
no matter how far away it may be
sounded. What contrast is this !!
Within the memory of men now living,
within the memory of the Senator from
Arkansas and myself, the scarcity in
one country might destroy thousands
Of lives because the local food supply
had run short. in Ireland in lS4S,
and in India 20 or 30 years thereafter,
famines have almost decimated popu-
lation. What has made il now, as
have said, an almost impossible thing
that that should occur, except these
wonderful improvements in the prod
ucts of the enterprise and the brain
and the courage and the capital OF the
civilized world?
Mr.. President, that is not all. The
methods of transacting business, the
mode in which excha 1ges are made of
commodity for commodity, have all been
so wonderfully facilitated by modern
methods of business and by modern an
pliances that there can be no compari-
son between the new and the old.
Within our memory if cargo of iuto
or of gunny bags was to be brought
from India you had to send the gold
across the sea on two or three months'
voyage, with the loss of interest, the
risk of destruction OF the gold Itself
and then the long wait for the return.
Now, as | have had occasion to say
think it was the Senator from Massa-
chusetts who told me a year or two ago
"a gentleman in Boston before he left
for the train ordered cargo such as
have mentioned at Bombay, and i'm
mediately took the train. When he ar
rived in Washington there was sent
to him a cablegram from his house in
Boston that the cargo had been bought
the ship chartered, land commenced
loading, and the credit to pay for it
transferred, and not one dollar of gold
budged from the position that it had
occupied hitherto. Is all that, tho re-
suit of this tremendous improvement
and advancement in the methods by
which business is transacted, to be lost
sight of? Is all that to be ignored as
not counting in the decline of prices?
Oh. no, Mr.. President; causes SO OBJ
vious as these can not be whistled down
the wind; they can not fail 10 challenge
attention. They are sufficient to ac
count for the result, and there is no
other sufficient cause which has been,
SO far as | know, suggested.
Cotton has declined in price and so
has silver, ana cotton has gone up in
price and silver has gone down. Some
commodities have declined enormously
whilst others have remained stationary.
How are you going to account for it
by the decline in the value of silverY
Wheat has gone down and so has cot
ton, but meat products have gone up.