The Goldfield news. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1904-1911, 1909-10-09

on some suggestions Tor Settlemon
. of the Silver Question:.
In opening his address, Mr.. Goodwi
) gave a history of the discovery of grea
silver deposits at Virginia City, of tn
rush to the great silver fields, and thel
of the final destruction of the none,
value of the white metal by the Unite,
States. Thsn he said:
All through this deplorable period
France, which had maintained silver a
a parity with gold, and Mexico, which
had no money but silver, were pros
pering exceedingly. In our country
there was no relief until a failure OF
crops in India, in southern Europe, in
Argentina and Australia sen 1.-THE world
to us to buy bread. The engineers
strike in England, which lasted three
years, made a foreign market for Ameri.
can manufactured goods, and in three
years the United States drew from the
outside world a profit of 1000 millions
in gold, the volume of money was re-
stored and with it the business in the
country was restored to its normal con
dition.
About the same time the discovery
of the cyanide process for cheaply re-
ducing rebellious, low grade gold ores,
and the opening of vast gold deposits
in Cripple creek, South Africa and
West Australia, in seven years added to
the worlds gold supply more money than
had been added in silver in the pre-
ceeding forty years.
1t may be asked why this history is
sprung anew after it's settlement six
teen years ago. One answer is, no pub
lie, vital question which concerns man
kind is ever settled until its is settled
right. In the last seventy-ive years
the tariff war has declared many a
truce-in order to bury the dead and
reformh the lines-but there has been
no settlement.
Should silver, at a fair ratio with
gold, be recognized as it was forty
years ago, and then if it should not
maintain it's parity with gold, that
would make true what the enemies of
silver have beck falsely asserting since
1875 and would finally settle the ques-
ton, but while gold has full recognition
and silver is held as a mere commodity,
to say that each stands On its W
merits is neither good sense nor com
mon honesty.
But there is a special reason for re-
turning to this question now. The
myriads of men in the Orient, Spanish
America, southern Europe, Western
Asia and northern Africa will not, can
not and have not changed their money.
Some states have accepted the gold
standard, but this has been merely for
convenience in dealing with foreigners,
the money of the people, of the workers,
who create a eountry's wealth, has re-
manned the same. And that money is
silver money.
Though silver, measured by gold, has
fallen nearly or quite 60 per cent, EN-
ployers in silver money countries pay
employees the same weight of silver
that they paid thirty years ago. The
result is that they can sell their wares
TO us at about one-half what they
could thirty years ago, but when they
come to buy of us, the cost, in their
money, has more than doubled, and ex-
changes nave fallen until our expert
trade with half the world s people has
leen practically killed. The ships OF
the Southern Pacific Railroad company,
formerly engaged in the Oriental trade,
are swinging, idle, on their chains in
San Francisco harbor, and Mr.. Hill of
the Great Northern and Northern Pa
cifc roads, admits that he has no out
hound cargoes for his ships to China,
that since the war between Japan and
Russia closed, the exports to both Japan
and China have been chiefly confined
to such machinery and material as the.y
were obliged to have and are not yet
able to supply from their own works.
Eastern manufacturers can no longer
sell their wares in the Orient, their
trade with other silver countries is be
ing swiftly curtailed-countries which
contain quite half the inhabitants OF
the earth. They are asking what the
barrier is that has been upreared
against them.
The great fnanciers and bankers see
the Generalization that has fallen upor
the exchanges ard are helpless to pre-
scribe any remedy; the reports OF oul
c~onsuls in China, japan, India, TIrkeJ
and Egypt all report our export trade
dead with those countries, and it is al
most as bad from South America.
At the same time the appeals OF thu
eastern press for a closer walk and ex
tended trade relations with China, 4
illustrated, would make a hilariou
showing in a comic almanac. In tn
meantime. the awful Chinese hive ha
begun to swarm, her manufacturers ar
being rapidly extended, and it will no
! be long before she will be laying dow
J in our ports iron and steel and woole
goods and a thousand other staple art
-. ,;ao, .h;oh will dafy tbp neu