Los Angeles herald., 1909-09-29

recognition to silver The longer this
is delayed the more baneful will be the
effects which have followed that de-
rnonetization. Japan has driven Eng
lish and German ships from the trade
of Eastern Asia because her seamen
work for half what they did twenty
five years ago, while white labor has
doubled. The situation has become a
menace to all enlightened, gold stand
ard nations. AS Tom Reed said, THE
white man with yellow money cannot
compete with the yellow man and his
white money"
China Would Buy Silver
It is true that our legislation of 1873
has closed the export trade of the Unit
ed States against one-half the inhab-
itants of the earth. And that legisla-
ton was as petty as it was unfortun-
ate We claim a per capita circulation
of money of S33 Had all the silver
that has been taken from the mines OF
the United States and Mexico since the
discovery of the Comstock fifty years
ago been sent to China, it would not
have given her people 81 per capita.
and China, with a permanent ratio fixed
between the metals, would gladly ouy
100, ,000, 900 ounces of silver annually for
twenty years to come.
I see no remedy except through the
restoration of silver to its immemorial
place as primary money on fair ratio
with gold. What a feir ratio would be
is a question of international concern
ment. At whatever ratio decided on,
that would establish the price of silver
the world around as fast as the cable
could carry the news. The weight OF
silver paid to labor in silver-using
countries would not be changed.
If the silver dollar was made equal
tor nearly equal to-the gold dollar
then articles of Oriental production
would about double in cost; then ex-
changes with silver countries would
advance to their old stations, and trade
with silver countries would be restored.
And there is no other way to restore 1t.
Either silver must be remonetized or
gold be demonetized, or trade with the
Orient must cease and grow less and
less with all silver countries.
Mining Vital Business
Now mining the mining of precious
and base metals, is the vital business of
our country Before the revolutionary
war the colonists toiled for $50 years
and were very poor. When the gold in
California was found the people of
these United States had been toiling,
raising crops and burning corn for fuel
for sixty years, and were still very
poor; the very rich men of the whole
republic could be counted on the fin
gers of one hand.
Mining is to business what the bab-
bit metal is to the boxes under rail-
road train. No matter how richly the
train may be freighted, what does it
avail if the wheels will not turn? 1t
is not so valuable as the agricultural
products, but it is what gives the prod
ucts of agriculture value, by supplying
the needed volume of money
No purely agricultural country was
ever very rich or great. All the money
III the world came originally from the
streams, the hills and the desert; it
must continue to come from them.
Demands Place in Cabinet
A few years ago the government de-
cided to have a secretary of agricul-
ture. The live man in that office has
in the last twelve years magnitied and
exalted agriculture until it has become
a royal science, and already the vis-
ion is before us of doubling the prod
ucts of the soil and nightly extending
the area to be cultivated.
Mining should be represented in the
same way. Had there been live and
enlightened secretary of mining in
Washington thirty-six years ago he
would have seen what was intended
and would have sounded the alarm to
the country anu INC lhletlliOuS ASS ASAe
ton which passed then would have
been defeated and all the woes that
followed that legislation would have
been avoided.
Such an office and officer are needed
to gather data of mining from all over
the world, to be guides for men en-
gagged in that business; to be guides
for financiers and the financial officers
of the governments to keep up with the
production and reduction of ores; to
make needed experiments; to do in the
line of mining what Secretary Wilson
has done and is doing for agriculture
and horticulture.
Miners Have Been Robbed
The government could afford to do
this, even if there was no promise of
great benefits to follow. for the laws
of 1873 and 1898 have robbed the min
ers who have transformed the desert
and made its progress possible Of quite
81, 200 100000 and because of that rob-