Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1897-09-14

the separate price or value of cotton
and wooden cloth. The one is a quar-
ter, the other dollar. You have also
In addition discovered the relative val
ne of these cloths. One yard of the
one is worth four times as much as a
yard of the other. The relative value
is as four to one. In other words to
use the language of this financial dis
cussion you have established a ratio;
it is four to one. Evidently this ratio
is an actual, natural, true, commercial
ratio. 1t has been established under
entirely natural conditions, and hence
this ratio can not be otherwise than a
natural result.
Understand now, know this word
ratio is not used to designate the rela-
tive value of cloths. am only using
it in an illustrative sense.
A DANGEROUS ADVISOR.
Now just when you had matters NOV
ing along nicely, another stranger
happens along and in conversation
with him yOa recite your experiences,
informing him of the market value of
your cotton and wooden cloth, and in
cidentally you mention the fact that
you have established a commercial
value and a relative value or ratio Of
these cloths, and that it is four to one.
He will begin to shrug his shoulders,
shake his head, and look wise. Final
ly, he will gravely inform you that
you are wrong. He will proceed to
kindly inform you that if you want
to ascertain the commercial ratio of
cotton and wooden cloth, if you want
to determine their true relative value
you must not permit present condi-
tions to continue. Let everybody
make. buy, sell and wear woolens but
restrict by law the sale and use of
cotton. Do not permit it's use for
coats and pants and calico dresses, or
grain sacks or tents; just use it for
Undertaking, and just enough for
change" you know. You laugh at
his ideas at first, but being a smooth
talker, he proceeds to unfold the beau
ties of his plan. He is, you see, law
yer; a wonderfully bright chap; in
tellectually equipped to champion
either side of any question. He is a
resourceful fellow. Should he ever
be appointed United States Judge he
will demonstrate his capacity to hand
down all sorts of contradictory deci-
sions. reaching the sublime point of
finally reversing himself. Well, we
will suppose you take his advice. You
permit the unrestricted use of wool
ems as before, but prohibit the use of
cotton Except for underwear. Now, do
you suppose the same relative price of
cotton and wooden cloth will continue i?
Not at all. There will now be an in
creased demand for woolens with a
corresl onding decrease in cotton. The
increased use will result in an in
crease in the value of woolens, and a
higher price will be the evidence. AS
the p.ice OF woolens goes up, that of
cotton must go down; for you have
desire .yed its use, and it is the use of
thilg that constitutes it's value.
Wools ms now will sell for So yard,
cotton for 10 cents. The relative val
lie or price has now changed. The ra-
tho ESQ to speak) is altered. 1t is now
20-1. But is this changed, this new
ratio, natural ratio? It can not be,
for it is the result of artificial condi-
tons. The new ratio is purely ar
tificial ratio, the direct result of the
abolition of the use of cotton cloth.
When you destroyed the natural con-
ditions you had established and SUBJ
stituted therefore artificial conditions,
the result as to price, as to relative
value can be none other than an
artificial result. What you people here
in Webster county are supposed to
have done concerning cotton and WOOL
en- cloth, we and some other nations
have done concerning our gold and
silver coinage. The equality of con-
ditions, the natural conditions, which
governed the minis up to 1873, have
been destroyed. We still allow gold
its former standing, coin all that
comes; but silver we have outlawed.
Its character as primary money we
have destroyed. 1t is the abolition
OF this use that has destroyed a part
OF it's value and the inevitable result
is changed relative value, changed
ratio. When by law you restricted the
coinage of silver to subsidiary coins,
permitting full and free coinage to
gold as before, you destroyed part
OF the value of the outlawed metal
and augmented the power of the gold
dollar by artificially increasing it's use;
an increased demand for gold resulted
when you outlawed silver, precisely as
an increased demand resulted for