Birmingham state herald., 1896-03-15

 either kind that were offered for coinage. As have before said, the test of ability to maintain n parity between the metals is the power, founded on extent and variety of uses for money, to absorb them in conn merce. Whether the United States could independently achieve this result is not, perhaps, absolutely demonstrable. It is q question of judgment. My own opinion IS that the task is not beyond us, and that, though some international concort is pref erable, independent action is much to be preferred to the indefinite continuance of the present system. In this connection I wish merely to call attention, in passing, to the fact that it was the powerful influ ence of the French mint that caused, first the gold (when our mint ratio was 15 to 1 and Frances 1512 to D and then the sill yer (when we had changed to 16 to D to leave the United States and go to France. It was exactly as If commodity were to seek the highest market. But if she took our gold she sent us her silver, and vice versa. The process was natural and not harmful Both metals wore somewhere performing full money functions for all the world.
 When asked whether England could sue cessfully alone undertake tho maintenance Ol bD6 ptflUY Ol BOlu anu sINSr WltH Open hints, Sir Henry Hucks Gibbs said, Any great commercial nation can do it"
 We do not sufficiently realize what a powerful nation we are and what we can do if we set about it. We need a little of the spirit of 1776. Why, we are moro afraid of England now, after we have grown big enough to whip all creation, than our fathers were when they could count no more population than tho state of Ohio has now. So long as VIC want her to do it England will manage our money system for us, and we may depend on her having an eye on England's interests while she Is at it.
 make the assertion that in nearly ey- cry respect the conditions enabling a na- tion to support a system of bimetallism are today more favorable to the United States than they were to France from 1S03S to 1873.
 To begin with (see chart D), from 1903 to 1870 the average number of ounces of silver in the world in coin and available for coining was 30 times as great as the number of ounces of gold. Yet she made it possible during all that time to go into the market and buy as much with 15h ounces of silver as could be bought with ono ounce of gold. Today there arc only 16 times as many ounces of silyor in the worlds stock as of gold. Our ratio of coinage, 16 to 1, would, to commence with, almost exactly correspond to the natural ratio by weight. Ought 1t not to be very much easier to float two metals at 16 to 1 when the relative amounts of them arc practically just that than to do it when there were twice as many ounces of silver to one of gold as tho ratio called forp
 Again, if the demand for the use of a metal is the test of ability to maintain it at parity, the case is still stronger In ex- tent and variety of power to give employ ment to money the United States today is immeasurably greater in respect to tho general capacity of the world than was France 25 and more years ago. Says Null hall, the worlds greatest statistician, in North American Review, June, 1895:
 "If we take survey of mankind in an cient or modern times as regards the phys ical, mechanical and intellectual force of nations, we find nothing to compare with the United States in this present year of 1895. The physical and mechanical pow CT which has enabled community of woodcutters and farmers to become in less than 100 years the greatest nation in the world Is the aggregate of the strong arms of men and women, aided by horsepower, s machinery and steam power applied to the useful arts and sciences of everyday life.
 The relative extent to which a nation uses steam power illustrates perhaps as well as any one thing can the degree to which that nation is factor in the worlds business and can give money work to do. In 1870 the worlds steam power, according to Mulhalls dictionary of sta tistics, was Is, 460 900 horsepower. That of France was 1850, 900 horsepower, or little more than 10 per cent of the whole. In 1888 the total for the world was 50, 15O, 900 horsepower, and of this the share of the United States was IA, AGO, GOO, or nearly 20 per cent Our share today is 16, 940 GOO, almost as great as that of all the world In 1870 and fully three times as great In proportion to the whole as was that of France in 1870. Here we see, says Mulhall, tLat ''the United States possesses almost as much energy as Great Britian, Germany and Franco collectively"
 In comparing the two countries in re- spect to commerce, 8 most important point is this: In proportion as tho foreign com merce of patton is small relatively to the entire bulk of trade, 1t is easy to main- tain money system possessing independ ent features. In 1870 the total exports and imports or Une WOrlu Wer6 apprOxlinabely $11, ,000, GOO, 900, and those of France lit- tic moro than s1, 100, GOO, 900, or about 10 per cent of the whole. In 1889 the worlds total was nearly s17, ,0o6, ,0O0, 900, and the share of the United States was about s1,- 500, 900, GOO, or nearly 10 per cent. While 1t is impossible to obtain data as to the internal commerce of various countries with completeness and accuracy, enough exists to show us that @ very much greater percentage of the total commerce of France in 1870 was foreign than the percentage of the foreign commerce In the total trado of this country today. It Is commonly con- sidered that not more than per cent of our trade Is with foreign countries, while it Is safe to say that in France in 1870 full ly three times that proportion in her trade was of that character.
 In agriculture I have not at hand the figures for 1870, but Mulhall gives the to- tai value of the worlds principal agricul- tural products for 1887 at about s19, 740, 0000 900, of which the share of France was g. 300, 900, 900, or somewhat less than 12 per cent, and that of the United States s3, 8S0, 900, 900, or nearly 90 per oent There is no doubt that the statistics of 1870 and 1895 would show even a much greater relative advantage on our part than this.