The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-11-09

Iio1 VI lAlc eilNcI-prOuuclLS regions Dy
the railroads, diminishing the cost of
production, while increasing the sup
ply by making profitable the working
of mines before Improbable because
of the cost of taking the ore to the
smelter. The railroad development is
progressing yearly, bringing into pay
ing use more mines, and the predic-
ton of ex-Congressman Guenther is
reasonable that when the Pan-Ameri-
can railway pierces the Andes, the
ratio of silver to gold will fall to fifty
and more to one. Silver, under the op-
GRAFTON Of these powerful causes is
following iron and copper and brass
in being so cheapened by increase of
supply and falling cost of production
as to be less valuable and, therefore,
less suitable for a money metal, ex-
cept for subsidiary coins.
Another indication, affecting gold
also, but in less degree. is the increas-
ing use of paper representatives of
money, or credit money, as shown both
in the use of bank notes and, to a
vastly greater extent, in the use Of
bills of exchange, drafts and checks.
The use of the latter in making ex-
changes and paying debts is shown by
the statistics Of the clearing houses
of our commercial centers to range
from 80 to So per cent of the transac-
fiOnS That ic Yaada
through the banks are made by the
use of from five to ten dollars in coin
and ninety to ninety-1ve dollars in
representatives of coin. This is ac-
complished by the cancellation, or off
setting of mutual credits, and is one
Of the triumphs thus far achieved in
the evolution of money and of economy
in it's use. Such displacement Of
work of exchanging could have no
other effect than to depress the value
of both metals for money purposes,
and in this fact we find a conclusive
refutation of the appreciation Of gold"
conjecture.
A conclusion thus drawn from actual
conditions finds confirmation when one
applies merely the known and uni
versal motives Of human action to the
problem. Human energy, no less than
the motion of bodies, runs on lines Of
least resistance. Men always strive to
accomplish that which they have to
do with the least expenditure of eff
fort. From the man who first used a
lever to roll log or lift a rock to
the man who checks against his credit
in a bank to pay for his purchases,
this controlling motive has operated to
produce all the devices for saving
manual labor. No man carries willing
He discards fifty-pound bicycle for
one Of twenty-five or fewer pounds.
In money he has always sought and
will always seek to carry the greatest
man today, silverite or whatnot, will
prefer the seventy-one pounds Of sill
yer in a thousand dollars when he can
carry the same value in 448 pounds of
gold, nor will he weight himself with
the four and one-haf pounds Of gold
if he can carry the same value in a
feather-weight of paper.
Thus human desire, which is the
basis of all value, wars against silver
as money by avoiding it as much as
possible as a storehouse for commod-
tiles or as a means of paying obliga-
tons. This desire is the demand"
of trade, and as it diminishes the value
of the thing less desired inevitably
falls. The treasury tables tell how
forceful this desire is, for, with the
utmost exertions, but f1fty-odd of the
nearly four hundred millions Of silver
dollars coined have been taken by
use by the exchangers of this coun-
try. 1t is this array Of facts and law
of human action. that have made some
of those who thought silver still a
suitable money metal reverse their
judment and believe that it has
passed into the ranks of a token or
subsidiary money.