Middletown transcript., 1898-07-30


Pa pence, the figure for the current year. The
difficulties with which the government has to
cope when every fall Of penny per ounce in
silver adds $l,162,1T to the nations fixed
charges are too apparent to need explanation,
and although there was a cheerful tone in the
last message of President Diaz to congress with
regard to silver, it would be rash to predict
that its price may not further recede until the
Mexican dollars are not even worth % pence.
The above information suggests why
itwas matter of grave concern, which
was given careful consideration before
the conclusion was reached that Mexico
should continue to stand by silver. The
fact that the free coinage of silver re-
duces by half the price Of labor and
thereby invites capital desiring to take
advantage of such conditions was prob
ably the determining factor in the prob
lem as to whether or not Mexico should
stand by silver.
Labor Conditions.
In order, however, that there shall be
no question as to whether Mr.. Bryan's
statement that the conditions perpetual
ed by the free coinage of silver are SEN
tirely satisfactory to the people Of Mex
ico'' is at all justified we give the fol-
lowing quotation from an editorial pub
lished in The Mexican Herald, the lead
ing daily paper of Mexico, paper ex-
tremely friendly to Mr.. Bryan and, as
will be noted, an advocate of the con-
tinuance of his peculiar financial policy
in Mexico for time at least. In an is
sue of the last week in February, some
time after the visit of Mr.. Bryan to
Mexico and after the publication of his
views as to affairs here, The Herald
said:
Meantime Mexico will push forward, aided
by her cheap money and the consequent pro-
lection Of the gold premium, which acts as a
bounty. But the time will come when it will
be desirable that our money shall be made
good money abroad Labor conditions here
will slowly change and the children of the
peon, educated in the public schools, will de-
Yelop those wants which are at the basis OF
what we know as civilization. When these chill
dren become men, they will not work, as their
fathers have, for small wage and be content.
There is no possibility of mistaking
the meaning of this declaration or of
denying its justification. The free coin
age of silver in Mexico with its attend
ant results can exist only until those
wants are developed which are at the
basis of civilization. The children ed
ucated in the public schools will not
endure the effects Of free silver as their
fathers have endured them.
Mr.. Bryan says the Mexican dollar
will buy almost as much as it would in
1878, and he refers to yard of cloth
which could have been bought with a
Mexican dollar in 1878, now increased
in price to So. 10, with transportation
and tariff added, as an illustration of
the bad effects Of the monetary standard
of the outside world rather than that
of Mexico. But with the silver in which
this cloth price is to be paid now being
proftably produced for from 30 to 40
cents per ounce, measured by the same
gold standard of value as is the cloth,
whereas in 1878 silver was held by its
producers at $1.09, his illustration be-
comes mere childish play upon words
with evident desire to deceive.
He says that wages are higher on an
average in Mexico than ever before and
still rising. have Mexican publica-
tion before me which quotes from an
official report addressed to the Belgian
department Of foreign affairs to the
effect that labor in the most profitable
investing and producing districts OF
Mexico rarely exceeds % centavos per
workingman per day." and Mr.. Bryan
knows that the rate Of wages which is
rarely exceeded is usually above the av-
erage. twenty-five centavos per day is
worth between II and 10 cents in
American currency. was told at the
Zacatecas mines and at the Aguas Cali
entes smelter and at La Aurora wool
en- factory in the same city, and the
same information has been many times
repeated in the City of Mexico, that
wages for the same line of employment
had not increased in Mexico during the
past ten years
Americans In Mexico.
Mr.. Bryan says he found the produc
tions of our protected manufacturers ev-
erywhere in Mexico, selling in competi
tion with their European rivals. He
could have further said, had he been
we'll informed on the subject, that
American protected productions have
invaded Europe itself, recently increas-
ing our exports in that line to totals
never before attained, and that, too,
without the aid of the almost prohibi-
tive nonrevenue producing "wall to
keep out foreign competition" which
Mr.. Bryan approvingly refers to as one
result Of free coinage in Mexico. He
says that Mexican exporters have a
great advantage over competitors living
in gold standard countries. They most
assuredly have, and that great advan-
tage is the cheap labor they secure as a
direct result of the free coinage of sill
yer. 1t is an advantage not shared by
the Mexican producer who sells for sill
yer, nor by the Mexican laborer who
works for silver, but is monopolized by
the exporter who sells for gold and with
it buys silver, as he would tobacco, at
its lowest market price and doles it out
to the laborer and small producer.
Mr.. Bryan says he found Americans
in Mexico who stay there. There are
probably not dozen Americans engag-
ed in any form of common labor in all
of Mexico. They would starve to death
on the wages paid and could not equal
Mexican laborer in performing the Ia
bor expected Of them or in enduring the
many privations necessarily incident to
the lives of the working class in this
land of the free and unlimited coinage
of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1.
And this is the land and these are the
conditions and this is the system OBJ
servation of which from palace car
window and information of which gain
ed from eulogistic banquet speeches
"more than ever convinced MIR. w. J.
Bryan that the free coinage of silver
should be adopted by the American peo-
pie. PERRY +. POWERS.
City of Mexico