The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-10-09
FRANCE, WHEAT AND BIMETAL-
IISM,

LISM.
MIR. Morton Frewan, the English BIZ
,netAlliSt, has sent the following inter
esIdnS letter to fhe New York journal:
I enclose you am ARTICLE headed ''Why
France Has Proposed Free Coinage"
which appeared yesterday iu the most
prominent position in the London
Times, and which WIFI. ] venture to
think, be read with great interest uln
your side of the SEA
1t is French wheat" says the ctorua-
SpoGldent, which has caused the wLACle
mischief the mischief being the pro
pCs5dl OF the French government to re-
vert to the free coinage of silver. But
THE Illness correspondent fails to pc.lt
out why protective 1Q1Nes in France
tafled to keep the price of French
grown wheat at a uemunecGclVe laVel.
Tue real reason was that while the
trench were increasing their tariff, the
silver and paper exchanges between 1887
and 1894 fel so rapidly that protection
quite failed TO protect
Ii the Indian wheat exporter can set
(ln eXehange) as many silver rupees fer
one gold sovereign as formerly ne got
Tor two, nothing short of an al Vah3r-
EN- duty of 80 PER cent VIII suffice to
protect the French farmer.
Or, take again she case Of Argentina,
With a gl0Hd Uranium ait Buen1s Aype3
of 200 per csrt, the Argentine expo.pter
who sallS his wheat in LCCLIon fer q
sovereign gets, in, his paper money, one
pound, plus two pounds tea siI}l.ag5.
and the Value-the purchasing power of
that paper n1Jney-Was, as we know
from the evidence given before oIr
Agricultural Depression commission,
very nearly as great With gold at that
great premium, as it was when gol1
and DaDer were at par
1t IS lIsbe wonder, then, that such be
ing the currency cCnG.tioTs Of lLlIe wolGd
OF commerce. the average pu0tlScitiOnist
uElenlig,htensd as to the effect ca prices
CT these nCdarn exchange convulslctls,
! has JOINED the camp of the free trader,
while free traders by wholesale NAVE
recanted and become proteotioni1ts
AprOpOS of this agrarian revolt, which
the TInnlas'S correspondent observes in
France, and wAi2h has gaia9sd suc,l a
momentum also in Germany and Rus
STA. and which the accident of famine
in India and Argentina is merely check
ing in your country, let me draw atten-
ton 10 the messages to congress of Mr..
Daniel Manning in 1886 and of Mr.. j.
Rusk in 1890. MIR. Manning wrote:
1T is q direct consequence OF the
monetary dislocation that the wheat of
India, which there fetched three rupees
per qUintal fourteen years ago, and
there fetcheS three rupees per qufntal
today, can be sold in London Cost of
transportation aDart} for as little as
the Scld price of three rupees today-a
| fall of % Der cent. This lowered price
of wheat in LOudCu has dad GO be met
with q. lowered price Of American wheat
| in Lcnjion. The Yrice of cur surplus
wheat determines the price of the whole
wheat crop Of the United States. So
that the monetary dfSlocatlcn has al
ready cost our farming population, wfao
( number neayIY half the entire po3llIa-
! ticm of the United States. an almost in
comparable SUm--a loss of millions
upon m1Glt-nS every year.
Mr.. Rusk wrote to congress:
THE recent legislation looking to the
restoration of the bimetallic standard
of our currency and the consequent
enhancement of the value of silver,
has unQuestiona bly, advanced the
price of wheat in Russia and India and
! in the same degree reduced their power
of competition"
And Mr.. O'NeiH. our consul at
Rouen. reporting to our foreign office
upon the failure of protective duties in
France, says:
I'VE know that the culture of wheat
in the wheat growing districts of the
Punjab has been steadily fostered for
many years past by the depreciating
value of the rupee when measured in
sold. There, the premium on gold be-
ing less than the premium on gold in
Argentina, the corresponding advant-
age is, Of course, smaller; but it is
sufficient to enable the French i'm
porter to pay three francs fifty cen
times OF the five francs levyable as
duty"
1t is something that the sufferings
of ADMINISTRATION India and the losses
of the farmers in Argentina have not
! been in vain. Famine and locusts have
sufficed to raise the price of wheat to
q normal bimetallic level-that price
level, if bimetallism were restored.
would by raising all prices bring a
flood tide of prosperity to the entire
Industrial world
It is so extraordinary that the desire
Of few people, who are interested in
contracting the currency, should be
able to influence four-f1fths of the
newspaper press to deny the very
axioms of political economy. If. how
ever, we return to the chronicles which
we're contemporary with the gold dis
| eoveries in California we find the cur
rency issue as it was when it ante
dated its present political environment,
we find il discussed from its social and
philosophic standpoint. a few days
since, when turning over the pages OF
the Quarterly Review for September,
1852, I marked the following passages
in paper on 1.-THE Gold Discoveries"
"As the proportional increase in the
circulating medium has been far
greater in the United States than in
the other countries, it is there that ne
should look for the greatest increase
in prices, and accordingly tho letters
agree that a very great rise has taken
place there in all descriptions of prop
erty- The value of house property has,
! they say, doubled in the last four
years"
1T may be argued that a general
rise of prices can hardly be regarded
as a general benefit, that to the bulk OF
any community the action must be
wholly Indifferent. and that If bene-
fetal to some it must be injurious ia
others We have, however, tile fact
universally established, so far as we
know, that every great advance in
national prosperity has been coincident
with rising, and every marked decline
with falling prices. The treasure Of
the Roman empire. which had been
35S. 100000 under Augustus, sank to
970,000,000 under Justinian, and it