Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1897-10-27


sold depreciates and the money that is
bought appreciates.
The government of the United States has
no debt payable in gold, either principal or
interest.
1t is fact that Mexican silver dollars are
not legal tender in the payment of the ma
tional debt that puts them at discount and
puts gold at a discount and puts gold at a
premium.
Under free coinage of silver in this
country our silver dollars would be. as they
now are, legal tender in payment of all the
obligations of the government and there
would be no discrimination to create a di-
vergence of rates.
1t is simple principle of money that
when you discriminate by law in favor of
one kind of money and against another that
the one kind will appreciate and the other
will depreciate.
This is just the situation in Mexico; it is
| Just what the gold men want in this country;
| it is just what the advocates of free silver do
not want. What trouble there is in Mexico
Is due to the adoption of the gold standard
plan in relation to government bonds.
Yet the gold men point to the failure of
their own plan and say: Behold the results
| Of free silver"
10 Another radical difference between
this country and Mexico. which totally de-
stroys the parallel, is the matter of foreign
| trade.
All people by goods of the United States.
They have to. Any money which is legal
tender In payment for goods in the United
States is therefore good at its face, because
it can be used at its face in paying for
goods the people must hsve.
II a London firm comes into possession
| of thousand United States silver dollars.
those dollars will pay for thousand dol
lars worth of American goods, and as the
people in London want those goods and
must have them, those dollars are worth
Just rs much ss the goods they will buy.
The London merchant don't want the bull
lion in the dollars, and it don't make anv
difference to him if the bullion value of thu
whole pile when melted Up would not pay
for the coal to melt them. He is not going
70 use them In bsying goods in America,
and 1t Is their ability to buy goods in Amer
lea or to pay for goods already bought in
America that he considers. tits the ability of
these dollars to pay his debt to American
dealers. What foo. that London mer.
chant would be to melt up that thousand
American silver dollars, and sell the bullion
for four or five hundred dollars, when he
can ship them over to America and get a
thousand dollars worth of goods for them.
But Mexico has ne such foreign trade.
The people of the earth are not dependent
on her for bread and meat and cotton.
They are not buying largely of Mexico.
Consequensequently when London firm
gets thousand Mexican dollars, there ia
nothing he can do with them but melt them
up and sell the bullion. He ia not owing
any debts in Mexico that he can pay with
these dollars and is not likely to; conee-
qaently the power of these dollars to pay
debts in Mexico does not come into count.
The only thing to be considered is what he
can get for the bullion.
And this is the reason why United States
silver dollars in London are not affected in
the least degree BY the fluctuations in sil.
yer bullion. while Mexican silver dollars
rise and fall with every change in the bul-
lion price.
Under free coinage of oliver by the Uuited
States government the conditions vonJd
not be changed, and the city of Mexico.
therefore, affords no parallel at all.
SkrMouR.