The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1918-07-06
SLUMP IN GOLD VALUE
CONTINUED from Page one)


in terms of steel, the price has risen
257.5%. Compared with copper,
the average price of which for many
years before the war was 10 cents
per pound, 1873 Is pounds would
purchase a $40 gold-piece in 1912,
while So lilo pounds will capture
it today, the corresponding percent
ages being 36.1 and 56.6.
1t will be observed that we have
compared a finished product with
a refined raw product. The quota
tions on drill-steel, however, are
/ based upon the ingot, the price of
which is fixed, while no control is
exerted over the manufactured arti-
Gle. The price-ratio between steel
ingots in 1912 and at the present
time is 2.72, representing a decrease
in the purchasing power of gold
amounting to 1880, much more
nearly approximating the relations
shown by the prices paid for copper
in the two periods.
Tungsten is a conspicuous exam
pie of the opportunity presented by
an uncontrolled industry to advance
prices TO an abnormal height. Be
fore the war the average quota
ton was about $3.50 per unit of
WO3; the current quotation is s24.
Using our reversed view of the re-
lation OF commodities to money,
3.O76 units, or 61.52 pounds, would
buy $40 in 1912, whereas O.S33
unit, or 1856 pounds will do it to-
day, the purchasing power for gold
having augmented 269.2%. Exam
pies might be multiplied to illus
trate the truth that price-fixation,
when not based on a strictly demo-
cratic principle, exposes the restrict
ed industries to %extortion by those
that are free.
Gold has suddenly become altered
in it's relation to commerce.; sud-
denly it finds itself among the fet-
tered. Formerly it was the arbiter
of value. Quantity Of merchandise
was expressed in terms of a unit
weight of this token-metal. Being
the unit of reference it must be
considered, for monetary purposes,
as having no value in itself. The
common fallacy of a ~superabun-
Gant intrinsic value in gold as the
thing hat determines its use as a
monetary standard grew out OF fail
ure to note the fact that 1t was just
because gold was so lacking In
adaptability to unitarian purposes,
while at the same time possessed
of extreme beauty, density, and
resistance to %corrosion, that it full
filled SO perfectly the requirements
of a token in commodity-exchange.
Such a token by it's very nature
must come as near to typifying an
abstract. conception of as
any material thing al do.
The yard-stick that measures cot
ton cloth cannot safely be a piece
of cotton cloth, but rather an eX-
banded unit derived from the fun
damental conception of the human
energy required to produce the
three barley-corns that made the
irch of our grandsires. The human
eff ort represented in the pleasing
and nearly indestructible gold is at
the bottom of the idea of the stand
ard for which men will exchange
the fruit of their labor. 1t is hui
manrpower, 'man-power' in the
phase of the day, that we exchange
with each other, and the gold is
the symbol of it, as the cross is the
symbol of redemption.
What would you do with the gold
you receive but exchange it for
something else? Would you make
yourself a hoe of it, or a sword, or
an automobile? Steel would be
$3.50
worth vastly more for any of those
purposes. So, while the world
crowded the busy marts, buying and
selling, as there was need, and do
ing it in the name of the imperish-
able and cleaning symbol of labor,
gold was the prince over industry.
The moment, however, when men
no longer may appraise their wares
in barter on the sole basis of need,
but discover the offspring of some
labor bound and that OF other labor
free, the prince of trade itself, in
whose name a value has thus been
quoted falsely, becomes a slave
among the bondsmen, and is de-
r..1-1 or1 %o tho coont marcy nf