The herald., 1897-09-02

course Of events from that day to this.
Go down ten years and wheat is $1.15
per bushel, cotton is 10 cents per pound
and silver is $1.11 per ounce instead Of
$12s.
Ten years more elapse while England
stands like Shylock at the bar with the
debtor world pleading for mercy. But
the pound OF flesh from the heart of the
world must be cut. Wheat is 6S cents
per bushel, cotton is cents per pound
and silver is 72 cents per ounce.
For all these twenty-five years since
silver got its quietus by the pen Of John
Sherman and his colleagues, the farmer
and the entire debtor west has toiled un-
der burning suns, but in spite OF all ef-
forts their condition has gone from bad
to worse. Every product Of the farm,
from a horse or steer or hog to bushel
Of wheat, Of corn or potatoes. to a ton
Of hay or a case Of eggs, has cheapeneu
and cheapened At the same time the
mortgage has drawn the same rate OF
interest. In figures it has looked the
same but in bushels Of product 1t has
taken two to two and half where 1t
used to take one to pay the interest. The
payment of the principal has been out OF
the question.
That eternal law by which limiting the
supply and increasing the demand en-
Dances the value, true as the needle 10
the pole, held with money as with wheat
or wool. The capitalist fattened, for his
gold bought more products of the farm,
more farms themselves. more city lots,
and brick blocks, more human labor, and
more Of its products than ever before
Did space permit all of these 100 COM
modities, products of human toll and
objects Of human desire, could be cited
as wheat and cotton have been. All
compared with gold would show year by
year a shrinkage in value, and all as
compared with silver would appear to
have been on nearly dead level.
Once or twice in the quarter Of CEN
tury under review the great general law
has been overridden in the case of one
or more Of these commodities, by the
transitory interposition of conditions diff
fering radically from the normal. In
1880, when silver was still worth $1.14
per ounce, the influence of short crops
and international complications in ELL
rope sent wheat to .25, and in 1891, with
a famine in Europe, wheat was in great
demand, but as silver was down to 80
cents, wheat went no higher than s.
cents.
This year the world is confronted by
a food shortage hardly ever paralleled.
Wheat In Europe IL short So0.-
900, 900 bushels, rye 425,ooo,o0o bush
els, potatoes 1000, 100000 bushels.
At the same time the wheat crop of the
whole southern hemisphere is failure
and those countries below the equator
which usually have wheat to sell, mus,
buy from us. Here is the transitory
cause, the strongest in the present gen.
Grafton, which for the time being part
ly counteracts the general law by which
the primary money of the world, en-
hanced the purchasing power of
the half kept with its money
function unimpaired. But it only
partly counteracts that eternal
law. Great as the food Deficiency
is wheat is not by any means as dear
as in 1873 to 1880, while the demonetiza-
ton Of silver was making itself felt, yet
those were years of plenty.
In spite Of the shortsighted triumph
of those who think the eternal and gen.
eral law is superseded by the transitory
and abnormal condition, sad to say, that
inexorable law still holds its sway, and
American farmers who are led to think
the silver theory untrue will find the
terrible conditions of the last few years
will return to plague them when the
temporary conditions pass away