The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-05-11
two metals during that period was as


| so to L.
This information is found in the Sta
tistical Abstract giving the estimates
of the director of the United States
mint 1t may also be obtained from
the monthly summary of finance and
commerce. for July, 1895.
The commercial ratio existing be-
tween the two metals in the first year
of Jefferson's term was 1916 to 1. and
in the last year of his term it was
1908 to l. If natural causes governed,
silver, which was once the standard,
would hold its place by the side of
gold at the ratio of 10 TO /, the proper
ton of each produced during the last
$50 years. But men who talk about
fiat money and legislating value into
silver, seemingly forget that its honest
value was legislated away and that
gold was enhanced in value by the fiat
process.
One mistake the Tribune makes is to
assume that the commercial ratio and
the natural ratio are the same. At
present the commercial ratio is about
SO to l. while the natural ratio, Hsing
to the increased production of gold in
the last two or three years, is close to
Is to l.
Another mistake our contemporary
makes is in assuming that I'VE never
should have had trouble over the silver
question" if the ratio had been first
fixed at 151a to l.
Between 1903 and 1873, in every year
but one, large sums of both gold and
silver were sent from different coun-
tries to the French mint to be coined
at the ratio of 151a to l. 1t didn't draw
gold alone. If it had, that relation
could not have been maintained
through all that time. THE French
mint was ready at any time" said JOS
eph c. Sibley. in his speech in congress-
four years ago, Ito take any amount
of silver, or any amount of gold at
that ratio, that ratio being departed
from only in localities considerably re-
mote from the mint, and then in only
very slight degree to very slight ex-
gent, the variation in all those seventy
years being less than the variation be-
tween certified checks and gold in New
York City. in 1873; and yet certified
checks and gold were supposed to be
on a parity with each other
Edward Atkinson, the great financial
authority of the goldites, scraped up
some instances of a slight premium of
gold over silver. and argued from this
that before 1S4S gold had passed out
of circulation, and that between 1S4S
and 1870 silver passed out. But Mr..
Sibley said that, from the most careful
examination of the figures he had found
these statements untrue.
Besides, as Congressman Shafroth
contemporary to be absolutely invulner-
able. this country might be on a BIZ
metallic basis without the circulation
of one of these metals. There is con-
fusion in the minds of many people"
he says, between a bimetallic standard
of value and a bimetallic circulating
medium. Many people think you can
not have a bimetallic standard of value
unless in each country gold and silver
circulate side by side" And he argued
that, while gold may have been sent
abroad prior to the change of ratios
(Which, we have an impression, oc-
Cured in 1884, instead of 1S4S), it was
made to do service in another part of
the world as primary money, and was,
consequently, relieving the strain upon
silver, Just as if they circulated side
by side in this country