Lyon County times. [volume] (Silver City, Nev.) 1874-1907, 1897-08-21
SILVER AND WHEAT.

recently about the price OF wheat
and silver being so vastly different.
Most silver men understand the
cause of this, but for those who do
not the following, from the pen OF
Hon. Fl. F. Bartine, in the Binsetdl-
last, is reproduced. 1t is better
and more concise explanation than
has yet been given:
THE gold press is exultant over
the rise in the price of wheat while
silver is declining. 1t is pointed to
as proof conclusive that there is
not and never has been any con-
nection between the prices of wheat
and silver, and that, consequently,
the silver mems contention upon
this head is false. There is always
superficial argument upon both
sides of every public question, be-
cause there are SO many people who
persist in debating matters which
they do not fully understand.
Probably there is no phase Of the
silver question of which this is
more conspicuously true than the
relation of silver and wheat. Some
silver men have argued it, or rather
asserted" it in such way as to
indicate a belief upon their part
that there was a sort of natural
connecting link which could not be
broken. On the other hand, the
gold men have consta ntly and dog
matically declared that there was
no connection whatever, and that
the value of wheat, like that of
everything else, was controlled by
the law of supply and demand. !"
No silver advocate of any repute
has ever denied that the law of sup
ply and demand fixed the price of
wheat. But, conceding this, it does
not follow that there was no con-
nection between the gold price of
that grain and the gold price Of
silver. The relation between them
was not a natural and arbitrary
one, but purely commercial, and up
to comparatively recent date the
decline of silver had a most inn
portant bearing upon the supply of
wheat in the English market, where
the worlds price for that cereal is
made.
To make this clear: When silver
was shut out of the minis of Eu-
rope and America it's gold price at
once began to fall. But it contin-
ued to be the money of India just
the same as before, and its value,
compared with wheat and cotton
and other native products, remain
ed substantially unchanged. From
1878 to 1898 an ounce of silver
would, upon an average, buy
bushel of wheat at Bombay and
lay it down in England. Therefore,
if considerable quantity of East
Indian wheat could be sold in Eng
land at the same rate, it is plain
that all other wheat sold there must
be at the same price, and that the
price Of a bushel of wheat and the
price of an ounce of silver must
run more or less closely together.
But no well-informed silver man
ever claimed that there were no
variations. When it is said that
silver has remained stable in coun-
tries using that metal as money, it
is not meant that prices stood at a
dead level all the time, like the
surface of the sea in calm. That
is never the case in any country or
under any monetary system. Prices
will rise and fall with the changes
in supply or demand. Sometimes
the wheat crop of India was extra
large and again it was deficient
Of course this would affect the sill
yer price at Bombay, and conse-
quently at London. There were
times when it required more than
an ounce of silver to get the bushel
of wheat, and other times when less
than an ounce would do it. This
would cause variations from year to
year, and the lines representing
wheat an silver prices would not be
exactly parallel.
The reader will catch the idea at
once by glancing at table taken
from Secretary Carlisle's letter to