The Irish standard., 1897-09-04
EX-CONGRESSNAN TOWNE TALKS ON
WHEAT AND SILVER
EXCEEDINGLY INTERESTING INTERVIEW
THE WHY AND WHEREFORE OF
THE VARIATION IN PRICE
IS EXPLAINED QUITE SATISFACTORILY
SILVER WILL BE THE BATTLE CRY
IN THE NEXT CAMPAIGN.

The following interview with the
we'll known silver Republican, eX-Con-
gresham Charles A. Towne, Of Duluth,
appeared in recent issue of the Min
neapolis Journal:
Cali of the gold standard newspapers
seem to be of opinion" says Mr.. Towne,
that the cause of bmetallism has been
seriously if not fatally hurt by the re-
cent rise in wheat and contempolaneous
fall in silver. This betrays either an
ignorance of the subject upon the part
of these papers, or an assumption by
them that the bimetallists themselves
are ignorant of the true philosophy Of
their creed. The familiar expression Is
something like this: The silverites
claimed all through the last campaign
that silver and wheat are yoked to-
gether, and must go up and go down
together. What becomes of this theory
In the light of the recent career of silver
and wheat?' Now, OF course, as a mat
ter Of fact, We have never claimed any,
thing of the sort, and l desire to say,
through the courtesy of the Journal, to
those tlippant critics of mine who, like
the Little Falls Transcript, have been
wondering what l might have to say un-
der these circumstances in explanation
OF my alleged statement to the above
ho+ 1o;,
silver and wheat must under all circum-
stances vary on the market at the same
time, and in the same direction. What
have said is this, and repeat it. That
there is an intimate and cordial relation
between the price of wheat and the
price of silver, and that under normal
conditions, and over periods of time suf-
ficiently long to exhibit the operation
Of a general law, will, so long as the
world remains split into a gold-using
and silver-using half, vary together in
the same direction. The present condi-
tion of things merely supplies an added
demonstration of the truth of our con-
tention. The intelligence of q child is
able to grasp the following proposition:
Where the price Of an article, say OF
wheat, is fixed in a neutral market by
the competition of snrpluses from COM
peting nations, Il part Of which is on a
silver basis and a part of which is on
the gold basis, the exporter from the
gold country must accept for his COM
modify that price in gold which is the
equivalent Of the retail price which his
competitor from the silver country is
willing to take. Further, If, while the
purchasing and debt paying power of
silver remains practically constant in
the silver country, the gold price of sill
Yer constantly falls in the gold country,
SO that the original quantity of silver
which the silver seller of wheat was
content to receive is worth a less and
less amount of gold, then the seller OF
wheat from the country must, SO long
as he continues to sell in competition
with the silver raiser Of wheat, be con-
tent to receive a lower and lower price
in gold.
range himself intellectually with the
man who should deny the law of gravi-
tation.
Now, it so happens that India here
! tofore the great regulator of the price
Of wheat in the Liverpool market is
! famine stricken, and a mendicant for
| charity in the markets Of the world
She has also heretofore been the great
/ absorbent of silver among the nations.
! With two absolute failures of the wheat
crop in succession with hundreds Of
thousands Of square miles of usually
fertile soil now blistering and baking
in the sun, with 10000 900 of people per-
ishng of starvation, with the whispers
of insurrcction raising the fear of i'm
minent war throughout her borders,
with her mints closed to silver, face
which many millions of her people are
| just beginning to find out, and which is,
therefore, adding its influence as de-
terrent to silver importation, India is
| regarded by the world as having for
some time to come no future in the de-
mand for silver. Too poor, therefore,
! to buy silver, she withdraws her de-
mand, and that, together with the sim
ultanaOus reduction in customary de-
mand, caused by the action of Japan
and some of the South American re-
publics, who have been taking steps to-
ward the gold standard, and by the tenn
pOrary falling off of the amount used
yearly for subsidiary coinage purposes
by the European nations, has caused sill
yer to fall, just as the price of anything
will fall when the demand sackcns.
Moreover, being an importer and not an
exporter Of wheat, India is temporarily
not factor in the competition of the
market which fixes the price. Every
wheat producing country on earth is
| short In product so that Mr.. PillSbury