The Saint Paul globe., 1897-11-04


ton of monopoly, in order to come
once more into power by a greater ma
jority than it has ever received. The
Republicans have cut away the brush
wood and hewed a clear path through
the political forest. All that the hosts
of Democracy need is to march along
it with firm and even step to future
victory
SOME WARRANTED CONCLUSIONS.
The two great export staples Of this
country are wheat in the northern and
cotton in the southern section. The
price of wheat ranges between 80 cents
and 81, fully so per cent higher than
a year ago, while cotton ranges about
cents a pound, . cents less than last
December, and a cent above the low
est price ever reached, 5 cents in 1885.
This is a condition that invites refec-
ton because of it's relation to several
questions that have been proposed and
discussed in the domain Of politics.
The first and most apparent bearing
it has is upon the quantitative theory
of money, according to which the price
of products is determined by the guam
tity of money in circulation. There has
been no such addition to or subtraction
from the volume Of money in this coun-
try or in the world as to cause the
rise Of 80 per cent in the value Of
IL L To
the depreciation of 25 per cent in the
price of cotton. What change there
has been is in the direction of increase
which, if it has any effect on prices,
and, therefore, the value of cotton
should have risen with that Of wheat
and be now at least 10 cents a pound
instead of 6. AS cotton has fallen in
spite of an increase in money volume
and wheat has risen out of all proper
tion to that increase, the advocates Of
the quantitative theory will find in the
condition facts that disturb their cal
culations and should cause them to re-
examine their foundations.
Again, setting to one side those reck-
less persons who attribute the rise in
wheat prices to the incoming of Re-
publican administration, with its
enactment of increased taxation, it is
apparent that the rise in wheat values
is due to a short crop in the countries
where the usual supply is grown, con-
te,yY1 ina n f.its
1t is conditions approaching a wheat
famine elsewhere that add value to
cur crop. At the same time the fall in
the price of cotton is also the result
of famine. Nine-tenths Of our cot
ten is sent abroad in a raw state. 1t
is there manufactured, and the largest
customers are the countries lying with
in the tropics. The vast populations
Of India were stricken with famine re-
sulting from the drouth that destroy
ed their crops. This destroyed their
capacity to buy, resulting in a loss Of
demand, operating simultaneously with
one of the largest cotton crops this
country has produced. Commercial re-
ports abroad note the tremendous loss
in demand for cottons from India,
which has reacted on the price of raw
cotton, bringing depression to the South
just as the rise in wheat has brought
prosperity to the North. Thus we have
the same cause producing opposite
price effects.
t,eyip AL l. i
the price conditions of these two lead
ing staples is the supremacy of the
laws of trade over those enactments
Of men designed to control them. We
have had political party restored to
power on the theory that the financial
depression was the result of the rejec-
ton of it's policy and upon its promise
to restore prosperity by re-establish-
ing it. We have prosperity in the
wheat regions Of the country and de-
preston in the cotton section, the for
mer the result of failures, more or
less complete, of crops in competing
countries, the latter due to a failure
of one large source of demand abroad;
both causes beyond the control of con-
gress. To realize how little the Ding
ley act has to do with the conditions
in either section let crop conditions
here and abroad be reversed, a short
crop or a failure in the wheat region
and full crop in India and elsewhere.
No one in his senses and not blinded
by partisanry would claim that an in
crease in taxation of imports would,
under such circumstances, produce the
prosperous condition we are having in
the Northern states. 1t was the pros
pect of enlarged purchasing capacity
in the grain regions that started the
mills of the East, and they would be
smokeless today, in spite of DingIey-
ism, had not Providence distributed its
favors with uneven hand among. the
worlds tillers of the soil.
LA FOLLETTE'S REFORM.
We have noted with some surprise the
reception accorded by the Republican