The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-09-03
PUBLIC OPINION.

|4 -
According to Lord Kelvin, there are
only 200 900 tons Of fuel in the world
for ach person alive today. This
alarming fact is pointed to ny Chair
man Dingley as his reason for the in
creased tax on coal. but Dingley fails
to take into account the unlimited sup
plies Of heat in another and lower
world which should be Of personal in
terests Of the robber barons.
Ex-Governor Flower thinks that the
trusts SHOULD be let alone a they
have lowered prices. His argument, in
it's last ANALYSIS. is that anybody who
reduces the prices Of commodities
should be pardoned for corrupting leg
islatures and destroying competition
by questionable and sometimes by
criminal devices, such as the Standard
Oil people and the Tobacco trust have
sometimes employed. The trusts are
criminal conspiracies in their essences,
in their conception and in their meth
DDS Of procedure. Even IL they reduced
the price Of all the necessaries Of life,
as they do not, it would still be i'm
polite to condone their crimes against
morality and against the equal liberty
of all citizens. Price is not to be con-
sidered in competition with liberty. The
negro slave vas doubtless better fed
than many a free workman, but slavery
was justly condemned, nevertheless
New York World.
The Boston Advertiser seems to be
getting a glimpse of the cal situation
that now threatens to impose itself on
the country should silver, as Mint Di-
rector Preston boastfully predicts-fall
to 40 cents IN ounce. Our contemporary
notes that there is now about So, 600, 000,-
600 Of legal tender silver in circulation
in the world, the bullion value of which
has decreased more than so per cent.
since 1873, n says that if silver con-
tinues to decrease in value, this asst
moun Of money now current at it's
face value must either TAX on the
form of token money or circulate at its
bullion value. The Advertiser goes on
to say that probably the great CONNER
cial nations of the world would be glad
to see some miracle by which silver
would be restored to the value which
it had three decades ago. The difficulty
about this is that the men who 10 the
financial thinking Of the commercial
nations of the world are the very men
who are largely responsible for the
lanta Constitution.
Nevertheless, the gold monometallic
hypothesis as concerns the money of
the c1VlI1ZeO WOT1O amounts TO SOME
thing very much like this, nonsense
though it be. Gold is the money of
final redemption. All the business Of
the nation is transacted upon the basis
Of the yellow metal. All the CONNER
cial p is drawn against it. All
debts are supposed to be discharged
and all balances to be made good in
gold. And yet. if the United States
government could not, as The Enquirer
shows, redeem more h 10 per cent.
Of it's obligations in gold today, how
much less could the gold supply Of the
world meet the paper now current and
theoretically redeemable in that metal?
The simple fact of the matter is that
our circulating medium" is upon ex-
actly this "himsy foundation" and
that the financial system of the world
is similarly established and conducted.
The monometallists have discarded sill
yer and made gold the only money of
final redemption; yet there is not
enough gold in sight at this moment
to pay 6 per cent. dividends on the
drafts that have been drawn against it.
This is what Mr.. Cleveland calls "sound
finance" and perhaps it is. The silver
dollar is worth only 43 cents-intrinsic-
ally-they say. Well, what then, meas
| ured by the same standard, is the gold
mans paper dollar Notwithstanding
ton Post.