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

lions. Always India has been "a
sink" Of precious metals. demanding
payment for exports In gold or silver
at once withdrawing the coin from
circulation, either to hide and hoard
it or to melt and beat up the coin In
to bangles and jewels and ornaments
India Will Not Use Paper.
And now the war brought condi-
tons to India that literally set a
match to gunpowder. The general
population of India will not use pa
per currency, but midas exports are
essential to the winning Of the war.
India has jute and hemp and wheat,
and India has cheap labor.
Ordinarily India buys about $780,
100000 more than she sells, but lack
of tonnage has cut off her imports
and increased prices have swollen her
exports. The allies owed India $780,
100000 for war purchases. and India
would not accept payment excep. In
coin. How easy for enemy propa-
ganda to fan factional unrest to revo-
luton II there had been any delay in
the payment of that coin! 1t was the
place where the changers of money
might have become the dictators OF a
second Russia, but where was that
great mass of coin coming from?
Only one source of silver had been
left undrained in the whole world
those silver dollars piled up dead and
unused in the United States treasury.
Even before the Pittman act permit
ted the melting and expectation Of
these, private purchases had sent the
price of silver up so per cent. For
the ten years preceding 1908 In In
dia had absorbed and sunk" or lost
to circulation $135,OOO,0O0 of gold
more than quarter of the worlds
yearly production of gold.
For the ten years after 1908, that
Is to 1918, India had absorbed and
sunk" $440,0O0,0O of gold, or more
than the worlds production of gold
for one year.
BY 1917 the dangers to shipping by
way of London had become so great
that coin was going to India by way
of New York and San Francisco, and
the brokers of London We're power
less to stem the flow. Russia and
China also were buyers of silver here.
The dominance of the London brok-
ers In precious metals had passed
forever. One single purchase of sill
yer to the extent of $20,0OO,O00 was
supposed to have gone to India by
way of Canada, and what had begun
as trickle became a flood.
Averted Trouble in the East.
BY the end of 1917 India was draw
ing three fourths of all the silver
produced in the world. Silver had to
be supplied to India to avert a finan-
cial panic and perhaps revolution. The
world had produced about 175,0O0,000
ounces of silver and India needed inn
mediately s2OO,OOO,OOO worth and
later $15O,OOO,O00 more, so the United
States treasury dollars were melted
and exported,
But before that a curious situation
had arisen as to the rupee The pre-
MUM was so great on metal that the
silver in the rupee was worth more
than the face value of the minted
rupee. so rupees were being melted
up and going out of circulation. A
law was passed in India making 1t a
penal offense to melt or export coin.
Silver can not now be shipped to In
dia except by purchase of the gov
eminent.
But this is not the whole story of
the adventures of silver in the war
We are now paying France our army
disbursements in silver. With India
requiring $175.0OO,OOO more in silver
than is produced in a year and
France taking payment for our army
purchases in silver, it is not surpris-
ing that silver has doubled in price.
The free coinage of all the silver in
the world would not satisfy today's
demand on silver. Shot through
with the blood of millions of men Is
the warp and the wool Of the new
economic world the war is weaving,
and gold and silver are the strands
Of that weaving. What kind of new
economic world will result, only the
three silent fates working the strange
new loom know, but the allies are
holding together in one fabric to the
very end.