The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1897-08-17
NOTES AND OPINIONS.

The promised commercial prosperity is
in evidence.-N y Journal
And now the revival in business for
which the American people have been
waiting with such heartsick impotence
for so many years seems to be at hand
~. y. Journal, SiI0ey Dem.
The Cleveland Psaindealey, a daily
Democratic newspaper of Senator Hannas
home, reluctantly admits that there is
"some evidence of returning prosperity"
1t is moved to this admission by the fact
that single rolling-mill in that place
which has been silent for years has started
up with $500 men at work.
It is vain for the advocates of free-si1ver
coinage at the ratio of 16 to to deny that
their policy would include the silver
standard, and will they explain how it is
that the silver standard of money the
world over, from India to Mexico, and
China to Spain inclusive, means the deg
radiation and abject poverty of working
men1
The men who are ''silverites" in theory
are all "goldites" in practice. Not only
do John Mclean, Senator Stewart, Sena-
tor Jones, John P. Altgeld, and ''Vice-
President Sewell compel their creditors
to pay in gold, but now the Tammanyites
who are trying to stand upon di1apidated
silver platform have issued a lot of new
bonds of their society payable in gold.
The way both silver and wheat are
huctuating in price from day to day
should convince any one amenable to rea-
son that neither article is fitted to be a
standard of value, but there seems to be
no good reason why one should not be
proposed for that purpose as we'll as the
other. And when the matter is traced
down, it is always found that the prices of
both as we'll as of every other article, are
expressed in gold That is the one stand
ard to which all values are adjusted, and
every effort to introduce another only
makes confusion. -PEiEa. Ledqey.
The country had prosperity and good
prices for wheat before 1873, when there
were few or no silver dollars in the coun-
try. Prosperity and dollar wheat vanished
after the Bland act and Sherman act had
given us hundreds of millions of silver
currency. 1t might be inferred from this
that the multiplication of silver dollars
put down the price of wheat and destroyed
prosperity. But here we are, having high
prices for wheat again and prosperity
along with the silver dollars. So it seems
clear that SO long as the silver dollar is
kept at par with the gold dollar by means
of gold reserve it neither help nor hurts
the price of wheat and prosperity. What
hurts is the threat of the silver men to
destroy the gold reserve, so that the en-
tire currency of the country may sink to
the silver dollar, which is now about a.
cents. As for free coinage making 43
cents worth of silver sell all over the
world for 100 cents-that is prophecy
Baltimore Sun, DEM
William ]. Bryan, the defeated Demo-
cratic candidate for president, is prepar-
ing to visit Mexico to study the silver
question. That country is on a silver
basis, and its dollar huctuates in value
every day. Commenting on Bryan's pro-
posed visit, the City of Mesico THO Re
PH6iics, Mexican newspaper, says ''Mr.
Bryan will find, among other things, that
there is the same disparity between Mex
lean gold and Mexican silver as there is
between Mexican silver and foreign gold.
In other words, he will find that free coin
age of silver in this country has not estab-
lished ratio of I6 to 1, and that gold and
silver are not on a parity. He will find
this if he finds any gold at all. He will
find that dollar is dollar here, but it is
not dollar when it gets into those foreign
markets, from which the Mexican mer-
chant buys his goods, and, at this writing,
it is not half dollar. He will not find
that silver bullion has increased in price
to $I.2o per ounce, and he will not find a
man in the Republic who will not give
him two silver dollars for ore gold dollar
or one paper dollar with Uncle Sans
trade mark blown upon it."
We hope the Republicans, when Con
gress meets again, will take up the prob
lem of naval construction in earnest and
proceed systematically with the work.
During the extra session the party's at
tention was necessarily concentrated chief
ly upon the tariff, and its most iudicious
leaders were united in agreeing that other
legislation should not be attempted until
the prime object of the session he'd been
accomplished. Next winter this condition
of things will not exist. The Republican
party has hitherto been firm champion
of the policy of building an adequate navy.
We believe that this policy is popular as
we'll as righteous; we are convinced that
the masses of American voters are entire
ly willing to bear the expense of provid-
ing the United States with the best pos
sible kind of insurance against sudden at
tack by any other power-a navy which
shall be strong enough to make an assault
upon us an exceedingly dangerous under
taking. This country ought to have at
least fifteen frst-class battleships, with a
proportionate number of swift cruisers and
torpedo boats-N. Y. Commercial 14d0ey-
tSer
Some of the gold Democratic papers are
talking about the great "luck" of the Re-
publican party in coming into power just
as the prosperity wave is striking the
country. They are mistaken in the stu
alton, though. The Republican victory
and the Republican accession to power
came before the prosperity, and were the
chief influence in producing it. The con-
test was between the Republicans and the
Popocrats, and the gold Democrats, as a
party, were not in it. IF the Republicans
had been beaten the Popocrats would have
come into power, and in that event no.
body supposes that prosperity would be
here now, or would be approaching. Even
Bryan conceded during the canvass that
the success of his party might cause a con-
vulsion, but he thought better times would