New-York tribune., 1903-02-23
sugar-the very things to which the present oP
ponents of reciprocity are most opposed
THE QUESTION OF STANDARDS.

To the Editor of The Tribune
Sir: Referring letter from c. P Benedlct
and your comments thereon, will you allow a oilei
consideration of terms?
Since Il read my 'Whately's Logic" thirty years
ago. the terms standard of value and value
and the gold standard have not been mace
clearer by subsequent writers than they were In
Whatey's time. Mr. Benedict it is the interest
of Mexico Ito arrest the degradation of the white
metal by raising the exchange value of her dollar
from 3S to so cents and the term gold standard
appears frequently in his letter and in your com
ments
Whately himself although criticising the leading
economists. did not help clear the meaning OF
value" He saws it expresses relation many
say it is the purchasing power But what is TINS
purchasing power? 1t means the things which
you can get; the things which a thing viii
bring: the power of thing to buy other Things IN
the market
Now, then. will you allow this definition TO go on
record, to be strictly adhered to in further discus
sion:
Value Is Tor means) the market relation OF the
quantities and qualities of things.
Next let Us consider the means by which we
know at a given time, past or present, the actual
quantities and qualities of things exchanged or
their market relation. BY this means we lnIer
the probable market relation, or the value OF the
same quantities and qualities, of the same klhd
of things, under like conditions.
The means by which know the past ana
present and infer the probable future market re-
lation-nay properly called the standard OF
value.
Therefore the means. by which we know or infer
the market relation of OK quantity and Y quality)
gold to "a quantity and quality silver. or the
market relations of the aforesaid gold and silver,
separately or combined, &C quantity and ID
quality goods. is clearly the standard OF value'
and not either gold silver, which cannot be
the standard, 5ut the things judged by the
standard.
This means" in practical business. every day
in the year and everywhere in the civilized world
by which We know the past, present ana pa proDaIne an
ties Of things ie daily pressapd partlcq11latr 115t
Then the standard of value is the press market
price list ,.- T.. 49, o,oba,,sa
value of her dollar from 3S to so cents?
Since l % S5 noM the aona and to
infer the probable market relation we have pc
9T Te 4 or the her d6a r o ase f6e Value Of
dollar, then must mean to induce-for no govern.
value as shown by the standard of value
and otnr silver o using Countries must be to
cover what means will induce others to give more
Shown si by the true STANDARD 9f value the press
market price Ell list The The ya dGeS 6e net no
on the supply but on the Gemaqa GG9RG0RAN G9qEGS
No $50 Sixtieth-st Brooklyn, Feb. IA, 1903
The press market price list according to
The Tribune's best information and belief, is, in
this country an expression in terms of gold of
the value put upon other commodities py the
general consensus of opinion. What The Trib-
une has said that Mexico wants to do is to eX-
press the values in her press market price list
in terms of gold instead of silver The leading
commercial nations of the earth use that method
of expression, and are therefore able to know
the actual and to infer the probable market
relation of things. Mexico at present expresses
these relations in terms of silver, which itself
huctuates in terms of gold, and therefore nobody
can infer the probable future relation.
To answer Mr.. Corcoran's question. Mexico
can raise the exchange value of her dollar from
SO cents to so cents" by making that dollar
gold dollar instead Of a silver dollar This will
not ARREST the degradation of the white metal,
as Mr. Benedict asserted that Mexico was try
ing to do, but will change the character Of the
Mexican silver dollar by making it, like the
American silver dollar, a token OF gold value
To accomplish this Mexico says officially that
she proposes to stop the free coinage of silver
and to deal with silver bullion on the principle
of supply and demand. That is what England
has done in India; 1t is what Russia and Japan
have recently done; it is what the Latin Union
did; it is what the United States wants to do in
the Philippines; it is what China even is now
anxious to do. Why shoul- 50 many presumed
Iv gold standard advocates find fault when
MEXICO declares her desire to get into the gold
standard column?