The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1918-10-17

1918.
Since the outbreak of the great war
silver has gone up in price from so
cents to 81 plus. Why? Several rea-
sons are given. Here they are:
Owing to the war silver mining,
like all other INNINGS of precious
metals, is declining. When you ex-
anime it there is very little fact be-
meath this explanation. The silver
production Of the world for 1916 was
75,933,O24 ounces. In 1915 and in
1914 1t was more than 1S2,00O.000
ounces-which seems to show there
has been a decline. But wait! From
1908 to 1913 silver production went as
low as 100000 ounces and never
once exceeded 162, 10000 ounces, but
the dimes didn't disappear nor did the
price jump to $1.0S.
Another explanation Is that owing
to the disappearance of gold as coin
there has been an increased demand
for the use of silver, but in the old
pre- war days how often was gold
really used as coin? About as often
as $500 bills. We knew it was there
if we wanted it, but we didn't bother
using 1t.
Explanation Doesn't Explain.
Then an explanation is given of the
explanation. The nations having EN-
bargoed gold for foreign trade, the in
| ell -
this explanation likewise sets SO much
bunk. True, gold is chiefly used for
foreign trade and the various govern
ments have forbidden the expectation
of gold, except with special license,
but the very same governments have
also forbidden the expectation of sill
yer except under special license. so
the real explanation Of silver almost
doubling in price narrows down to
two questions which no man can an
swer, bluff he never so wisely:
Are people privately boarding sill
yer coin?
Or has the price doubled because Of
open and secret buying of silver for
the countries of the orient, chiefly
India?
No one can answer the first ques-
ton, for boarding is too furtive to be
traced, but the action of the govern
ments In Mexico and in France would
seem to indicate that both authorities
are apprehensive of secret boarding
| al nf f,r
ers buying up the boards at price
above the minted face value.
But that does not explain the alb
sorption of American dimes, and 1t
would take a powerful lot of proof to
convince sane people that the Ameri-
can public has taken to sailing away
silver dimes in old stocking toes and
unused teapots. Still the cardinal
fact "Reminiscences here and smaller
coins in France were absorbed as if
by magic. What a theme for new
O. Henry-secret agents gathering up
the coins, melting coins into bars in
some secret cellar and then SNUG
Cling the bars to an India or a Ger
many!
Much stranger things have happen
ed in the present war and it may be
that while we are shifting along spy
trails that are two years old and dead
cold, another spider is weaving
warp and wool around the silver
coin of the allies against the day of
reckoning when indemnities must be
paid.
Suggestion of Teuton Corner.
Consider for a moment with the
silver production of the, world down to
l75,000,000 ounces plus, worth 81 an
ounce plus, 1t wouldn't be much Of a
trick for country that has spent
bride funds by hundreds of millions
to absorb the silver coinage of the
world, The silver coinage from the
minis of all the world from 1885 to
1915 does not total s5,000,00O. 900
and what are billions in this war?
II Germany could by hook or crook
secret agent or plot absorb the S.
000,000000 of gold coined since 1885
and the less than $4,000. 100000 of sill
YER she could pretty nearly put the
world on a paper money basis, when
indemnites would not be so hard to |
pay, They could be paid in paper
scraps of paper'-and the paper
could be exchanged for trade, and |
the trick of absorbing the allies coin
currency would be alb urglars Jimmy I
to force open the worlds doors of flu /
ture trade with Germany. The idea
is recommended to the novelists and
dramatists who are still following old
spy trails.
But the absorption of silver by In
dia was alarming and grave enough
without recourse to fiction. That
story. too, will some day be told, a
story of fact, not fiction, with secret
plotters enough to put
the widest novelist to shame; plots
that reached from assassnations in
Vancouver and San Francisco to
Bombay and Calcutta. Five years
ago, a year before the war. | investi-
gated and told something of almost
100000 of revolutionary funds sent |
rom Vancouver and San Francisco
N India That yas two yaarS hafora | !