The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-08-22
wHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS.

When rightly understood few popular
sayings have a deeper philosophy than
this: where ignorance is bliss its
folly to be wise" If we knew our ulti-
mate destiny or the exact time when we
should be called upon to pass through
the dark portals of death to find it
out, ali our bliss would speedily depart.
In our ignorance is our peace.
That which has called forth these
few reflections is an article on Silver
Bullion by that distinguished writer
on economics and cooking stoves, Ed
ward Atkinson. He says that in China,
that land where nothing is new, that
land where, when a new discovery is
claimed or a new invention IS said to
have been found, they are never
astonished. their only comment being
L told you So" there is an I'M
known quantity of silver which passes
by weight at its bullion value. the
quantity being unknown and the
Chinese wanting it for their own use,
this country need not worry about It,
After dwelling upon silver in China
Mr. Atkinson tells story that for
childlike simplicity surpasses anything
that has been put forth as an argument
by any person during the present cam
paign, so far as we have seen. The
story runs as follows:
When 1 was in London a few years
since shortly after the diplomatic dll-
ficulties between this country ana
China, l heard a rumor that measures
were being taken 10 make dies exactly
corresponding to the stamp OF our
standard United States dollars, which
were TO be sent to China to be used
in converting United States trade dol
lars and Mexican dollars into standard
dollars 1t was said that this could pc
done only at the expense of coming.
the silver being already assayed ana
alleged and each dollar weighing S12
grains more than our standard dollar
Ii was said that these coins could be
sent from China through Mexico, Brit
ish Columbia and the Sandwich islands
in sufficiently large quantities to make
it very profitable business. l was
unable to trace this rumor to its source
and have never seen any evidence that
it had been carried into effect. But
how could that evidence be obtained?
We know that there are only about Co.
600, 900 standard dollars of our own
coinage in circulation. How Go we
exactly the same weight and quality,
carrying the same identical stamp,
which may have been made for US in
China and Japan, or in Mexico, where
the profit would now be nearly so per
cent? How long will it be before such
plan is worked on a very extensive
scale, even if it has not yet been work
ed? 1t will be remarked that
the registered figures Of the export and
the import of gold are somewhat fall
lacious. When the legai-tender notes Of
the war period became deprecated more
than 10 per cent the subsidiary silver
coin of this country vanished in a
week. Very large quantities of it turn
ed up in Canada. where it became a
nuisance. But the figures of export
never showed how much of that silver
passed from this country into Canada,
nor when silver reappeared, a little be-
fore the resumption of specie payment,
did the reimport become registered.
Such an argument we do not pretend
to answer, contenting ourselves with
saying: Where ignorance is bliss it's
folly to be wise" And who would
wish to enlighten Mr.. Atkinson and at
the same time rob him of his bliss