The Forrest City times., 1899-02-03
GOLD AND PROTECTION.
How the Republican Policy Affects
the Prices of Our Com
mOdities.

A rule, eastern protectionists are
In favor also of the gold standard.
They propose to make prices conform
to the gold standard, and seem to think
they can, at the same time, by tariffs,
maintain range of prices as much
above the prices in other gold-standard
countries as they may choose to fix in
tariff schedules. In other words, they
propose to make prices conform to the
gold standard, but they expect that
standard to be one thing in the United
States and quite another thing in Eng
land, France or Germany. If it were
desirable to do so, and we could, by
tariffs so restrict imports as to require
few exports to pay for what we import,
and could pay for such imports with
commodities in the production of which
we had great natural advantages, the
purpose of gold standard protection
lsts might, in some degree, be realized.
But our payments abroad are not lim-
tied to imports. We are debtor ma
ton; our people, our states. our mu-
inequalities, our corporations, owe
large sums abroad, the interest on
which, with other charges. amounting
probably to not less than a million dol
lars day, must be paid with com
modities or with gold We can pay with
commodities only by selling them as
low as they can be bought anywhere
else. We have not in the past, and we
cannot in the future, pay this increas-
ing debt and at the same time pay for
imports with commodities in the pro-
portion of which we have any important
natural advantage. In fact, the natu-
raj advantage due to soil, climate, prox-
unity to European markets, ETC., have
in large measure disappeared by the
opening Of the Suez canal, the extension
Of irrigation in India, and by railroads
into the interior of India, Australia and
South America. The gold standard in
the United States must necessarily be
the gold standard of the world, and II
gold appreciates anywhere it must ap-
preciate everywhere, and as prices 60
down in one gold standard country
they must 60 down in all. The prac-
tical situation is this: During the As
cal year 1896 we exported commodities
of the gold value of $SS2, ,606,93s. We
also exported gold to the amount Of
$50, 0,5SS,649 more than we imported. Be-
sides the commodities exported and the
gold paid away, large sums in bonds
of one kind and another are annually
gold. These help to swell the debt on
which interest must afterward be paid.
Statistics are wanting to show exactly
to what extent securities enter into our
international traffic, but at times large
amour is are transferred. But the ma
terial point in the argument is the fact
that the $685., ,606,93s of commodities
which went abroad in 1896, necessarily
went at very low prices-enough lower
than in other coun tries to induce people
to buy here rather than anywhere else.
And not only were the prices of the
products exported down to the level of
international prices, but the products
exported constituted only the surplus
not consumed at home, and conse-
quently the whole of any ything of which
but part was exported must have been
as low as the part exported. IL we in
clude. then, as we must, in the schedule
of low-priced products, the entire
products of the industries Of which
some part was exported, we shall find
that they constitute very large per-
centage of the entire productions OF
the country. 1t is quite apparent. then,
that in order to pay interest on the
debts we owe abroad, and for the carry
ing trade, and pay for what we import,
a large part of all the productions of
the United States must be kept as low
as anywhere else, or gold must go to
pay what we lack in paying with COM
modities; and when gold goes, credit
breaks and prices tumble, with all the
disastrous consequences that follow
every such breakdown.
A. j. WARNER.