Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1899-06-22
MoRToN's THREE QUESTIONS.
a Brief Reply Exposing Some FalIa-
cious Assumptions of the
AntL-SiIyerites.

If by international agreement the price
of silver can be fixed and made permanent,
In gold, why cannot the price of all other
commodities be made permanent and I'M
ductuating by the same process?
When the advocate of free and unlimited
coinage declares for sixteen to one, does he
not give away his case and assert himself
for a gold standard as the lone" by which
to measure silver and everything else?
Customs dues are based upon the value
of imports computed in American or United
States currency. The Jaw compels the sec
rotary of the treasury at the beginning of
each quarter to proclaim value of foreign
coins in United States money. Now, the
English pound is $4.S6 Clio on a gold basis.
Importing el00 worth of merchandise from
England to-day, you would pay duty on
s.S6 valuation. But going to a silver basis
the English pound would be in United
States currency So. 72-double Therefore the
duties the same goods would be double
would they not?
The queries of Mr.. Morton cannot be
fully answered in short paper. There
are implied in them too many fallacious
assumptions for that. There is room
only for explicit statement of some mis-
apprehension as to the entis which free
coinage desiderates, and exposure of
grave eros of elementary, monetary
and general economic doctrine. The
paramount end and aim of bimetallic
valuator (money) for commerce is the
restoration of normal price-range and
the maintenance of its constancy and
stability over periods of time. Stability
of general prices is exactly the same
fact as stability in the value of the price
making money. This stability of price
range, or in other words, stability in
ho Inc Of
portance each and all other considera-
tions in the legal constitution of money.
The price" of any commodity, gold,
silver, cotton or corn can be made per
manent and unhuctuating," if the stat
ute will but affix the money definition
and function to a prescribed unit of
that commodity. Such fiXity of price
(the mint price'') is, however, purely
arbitrary, statutory, nominal, static,
deinitional-the commodity named be-
ing it's own price maker. Whether
equivalence among the prescribed units
of two or more different commodities
will supervene in the general market
will depend upon the direction and
amount of force, i. e., pressure of de-
mand let loose by such legislation.
In the case of silver it should never be
forgotten that free coinage will give
the old time unlimited demand for sill
yer at S1.29 an ounce, i. e., 412h grains
of it will be ''intrinsically" worth one
United States dollar, the whole world
over. Free coinage does not, cannot
decree that the zone" shall measure"
the Is or the 16 measure the one. That
proposition of delusion and folly is
found only in party platforms. The
statute endows each independently
with the price making office in COM
merce, standing each on its own me-
tallic merit and in no way amenable to
the other in that office. The benefcenee
OF optional dollars does not consist in
their parity with each other. That
must be left to the free and salutary
play of economic forces governing all
exchange relations. How they will
work in that regard is a question of
value in dynamics, whose factors are,
first and chiefly, the gross quantity of
dollars of all kinds on the one side, and
the total commerce of the pepole where
they are used as standard or definition
al money on the other; and second, in
d ouool innate uoSlC1, uPoi "hothei
the legal ratio is approximately con-
formed to the quantities of each obtain
able for money use. The last dilemma
OF the querist betrays great ignorance
of the dynamics of value. It ignores the
pressure of demand which free coinage
would take off from gold and transfer
over onto SILVER and the changed value
ratio of the metals which that transfer
would compel. Ed. STARK