Hutchinson gazette. [volume] (Hutchinson, Kan.) 1895-1902, 1898-09-15
OUR SILVER ABROAD.
AMERICAN MONEY IN CUBA AND
PORTO RICO.
EnterprISing War Correspondents Send ia
Reports OF how silver has Deprecia-
ted In the Islands OF Cuba and Porto
Rico and Gold has Advanced.

pVSh VAShipilHVu III mUThVu uVBIce
latoly In the letters and cablcgrams
from Cuba and Porto Rico
Some weeks ago correspondent
named Robinson, writing from Lava
na, had sorrowfnl tale TO tell about
how silver had deprecated IN that Is
land since tho beginning Of the war
lie stated that 1t had failed about one
half, and rs consequence silver prices
had doubled, thus inlictlng dire injury
upon the poor, who had nothing but
silver TO buy with, The rich, however,
were all right because they made their
: purchases with gold and gold prices
remained tho same,
We have not had axcess to Havana
ourselves, and hence cannot speak
nom personal observation, but there
Rre few things we know about silver
without going TO Havana. First, we
know that since the outbreak OF tho
war "silver'--that Is, the metal silver
has not fallen in value, but on the
contrary, has risen some three or four
cents nu ounce, as the financial reports
clearly show. II there has been any
depreciation in Cuba II must have been
simply in tho silver coin used there
locally in connection with gold, Cuba
has practically the same monetary
system us Spain, which, so far MS me-
tallic money goes, is about like ours
She has the gold standard with lin
tied coinage OF silver So, II silver
coin has deprecated in Cuba II can
only be because tho credit OF gold
standard Spain has broken down, aud
she has not been able to maintain her
silver coin on par with gold, by rea-
son Of having enough of the latter
metal. Again, II gold prices have not
risen any, thea IL must certainly be
that the Pacific blockade has been
dismal failure, because food always
rises In price when II is scarce, whcth-
er it be in gold-standard England, sill
ver'standard India, or Argentine with
her paper money, That is too plain
for argument
But the story is little "Hshy" ali
around, for the simple reason that II
the rich pay out gold somebody must
receive it, Such payments necessarily
throw gold into circulation, and all
classes will have II chance to get some
of It, OF course the poor will not Pet
80 much rs the rich, but the poor can
not get 80 much Of any kind Of money
as the rich can.
Later tho word comes from Santiago
that since the surrender Spanish trad
ers have refused to take American sill
yer dollars except upon an equality
with American dollars, that Is to say
at so cents or less in gold.
The Spanish merchant who refuses
TO take the American silver dollar ut
more than so cents in gold must either
be ignorant Of the status Of our silver
dollars or he is seeking to perpetrate
fraud. An intelligent merchant In
Santiago must have known that he
could remit those dollars to the United
States where they were just as good us
gold in the payment of debts and pur-
chase of goods; or II not convenient for
him to do so, he could puy them right
back in change to the Americans with
whom he was dealing, The probabili-
ty is thut the cases In which the value
OF our silver dollar was questioned
were very rare, and that generally
they were merely the attempts of
tricky shopkeepers to play smart. If
they did actually think that the Amer
can silver d olar is only worth so cents
1t was undoubtedly owing, as the Ro-
chester Times we'll remarks, to the
pious endeavors Of the gold men to dis
credit IL by constantly proclaiming to
the world that it is dishonest dollar,
and 'intrinsically" only worth half as
much rs gold dollar.
Following this comes news from
Porto Rico entirely different In that
island, the thrifty merchants instead
of attempting to reduce the value of
the American silver dollar to SO cents,
have actually been trying to pass the
Mexican dollars at l0O---that is, on
par with the American dollar
All Of this growing out Of the differ
emit treatment OF silver in different
countries is highly pleasing to the
goldite. But still later dispatch
from Ponce to the New York Evening
Post IA rabid gold organ) will scarcely
cause him so much glee.
We commend to his intelligent con-
Sideration the following extract;
"This city is in its normal state and
wholly friendly, except in business,
which knows no friendships. The
money changers charge 25 per cent on
American gold and dislike to accept
it."
Good .,,orninp ooldvl t'Where are