The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-10-06
France, Wheat
and BirnetaNisr|
New York Journal.)

eSting communication TO tn1S newspaper
To the Editor of the Journal:
| l enclose you an article headed why
France Has Proposed Free Coinage
| which appeared yesterday in the most
prominent position in the London Times,
| and which will, / venture to think. be
read with great interest on your side
of the sea.
at is French Wheat" says the cor
respondent, (which has caused the whole
mischief''-the mischief being the pro-
posal of the French Government to re-
vert to the free coinage of silver. But
| the Times's correspondent fails to point
out why protective duties in France fail
| ed to keep the price of French grown
| wheat at remunerative level. The real
reason was that while the French were
increasing their tariff the silver and paper
exchanges between 1887 and 1894 fell
so rapidly that protection quite failed
to protect.
If the Indian wheat exporter can get
lin exchange) as many silver rupees for
one gold sovereign as formerly he got
for two, nothing short of an ad valorem
duty of fifty per cent will suffice to pro-
tect the French farmer.
Or, take again the case of Argentine.
With a gold premium at Buenos Ayres
of $50 per cent, the Argentine exporter,
who sells his wheat in London for a
sovereign gets, in his paper money, one
pound, plus two pounds ten shillings,
and the value the purchasing power Of
that paper money-waS, as we know
from the evidence given before our Agri-
cultural Depression Commission, very
| nearly as great, with gold at that great
premium, as it was when gold and pa
per were at par.
1t is little wonder then, that such be-
| ing the currency conditions of the world
of commerce, the average protectionist,
unenlightened as to the effect on prices
of those modern exchange commissions,
| has joined the camp of the free trader,
while free traders by wholesale have re-
canted and become protectionists.
Apropos of this agrarian revolt, which
| the Times's correspondent observes in
| France, and which has gained such n
| momentum also in Germany and Rus
| STA, and which the accident of famine in
India and Argentine is merely checking
| in your country, let me draw attention to
| the messages to Congress of Mr.. Daniel
Manning in 1886 and of Mr.. ]. Rusk
in 1890, Mr.. Manning wrote:
| at is a direct consequence of the mon
etary dislocation that the wheat of In
dia, which there fetched three rupees per
quintal fourteen years ago, and there
| fetches three rupees per quintal to-day,
can be sold in London (cost of trans
portation apart for as little as the gold
price of three rupees to-day-a fall OF %
per cent. This lowered price of wheat
in London has had to be met with a
lowered price of American wheat in
London. the price of our surplus wheat
determines the price of the whole wheat
crop of the United States. SO that the
monetary dislocation has already cost our
farming population. who number nearly
half the entire population of the United
States. an almost uncomfortable sum-
loss of millions upon millions every
| year"
Mr. Rusk wrote to Congress-:
"The recent legislation looking to tbs
restoration of the bimetallic standard OF
our currency and the consequent on.
hancement of the value of silver, has un-
Guestionably advanced the price of
wheat in Russia and India and in the
same degree reduced their power OF
competition"
And Mr.. ONeill our Consul al
| Rouen. reporting to our Foreign office
upon the failure OF protective duties in
| France, says:
"We 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 val
ne of the rupee when measured in gold.
| There, the premium on gold being less
! than the premium on gold in Argentine,
the corresponding advantage is,of course,
similar; but it is sufficient to enable the
| French importer to pay three francs fif-
| ty confines of the five francs leyyable
as duty"
| 1t is something that the sufferings Of
| ADMINISTRATOR India and the losses OF
| the farmers in Argentina have not been
in vain. Famine and locusts have suf-
| feed to raise the price of wheat to the
normal bimetallic leyel-that price level
| If bimetallism We're restored, would by
raising all prices bring a flood tide of
prosperity to the entire industrial world.
1t is so extraordinary that the desire
1 Of few people, who are interested in
/ contracting the currency, should be able
to influence four-ffths of the newspl-
per press to deny the very axioms OF
political economy. If, however, we re-
turn to the chronicles which were con.
| temporary with the gold discoveries in
California we find the currency issue as
it was when it antedated its present pol
itical environment, we find it discussed
from its social and philosophic stand.
point A few days since, when turning
over the pages of the Quarterly Review
for September, 1852, ! marked the fol
lowing passages in paper on "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 we should look
for the create, st increase in prices, and
accordingly the letters agree that a very
great rise has taken place there in all de-
scriptions of property. The value Of
house property has, they say, doubled
in the last four years.
at may be argued that general rise
of prices can hardy be regarded as 8
general benefit, that to the bulk of any
community the action must be wholly in
different, and that if beneficial to some
it must be injurious to others. We have