The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1918-10-17
Silver Becoming as Rare as Gold.
Demand Continues Unabating---Wh
Some of it Goes.

deys and you'll find 1t about as easy
to obtain as platinum, palladium, iri-
dium--which aren't obtainable at al!
and for which the government Is
paving prices running from sos an
ounce to SITS.
And though you can still obtain
silver the fact remains that in pro-
portion to the demand--especially
for the foreign trade-silver Is
becoming, If not absolutely scarce
relatively, rare as the rarest metal.
Is the day coming when silver, too,
will become shy and disappear in the
invisible "slnk" that absorbs pre-
cious metals in times of war? Sill
yer at 81 plus an ounce, which used
to cost So and 60 cents Is far more
startling phenomenon than coffee at
26 cents, which used to be IA cents
a. pound. For the silver production
of the world is very limited guam
tity, and except in a few rare silver
camps, like Cobalt or SLOGAN in the
early days, silver comes chiefly as
by-product of other metals.
We talked in the early days of the
war of money as silver bullets" Are
we coming to paper bullets?" For
the war has reversed every economic
theory the world has ever held, and
the free coinage Of silver today
would no more relieve the acute de-
mand for silver coin than the free
coinage of mud. The demand for
silver coin in one country alone, In
dia, exceeds for a single year the
entire world production Of silver.
Like a Leaking Reservoir.
The demand for silver is exactly
like great reservoir of water with
half a dozen inflowing pipes and an
unknown number of leaks In the bot
tom All we see Is that the surface
level of the water keeps sinking fast
er than the flow comes in. We find
one hole and stop the leak. Up comes
the water level; but before the world
financiers have had a chance to soap
their hands with satisfaction down
the water level goes again.
That Is where the whole world is
with silver just now-just where
King Canute was when he found he
could not command the flux and re-
fIux Of the ocean tides
Times was less than two centuries
ago when the proud silversmiths of
London met in pompous satins and
wigs behind closed doors and set the
price of silver for the whole world.
They were succeeded by the silver
brokers of London; but the war was
barely two years old when the whole
beautiful scheme of the past sprang
a leak, Silver began leaking away
through other pipes than London
through France, through Mexico,
through China. through the Philip
pines, through India and through New
York and San Francisco to India.
Stop gauges were damned on in the
shape OF government regulations by
France. by England, by Mexico, by
the United States. by India, but they
were jammed on too late. Not all
the man-made regulations can stop
the tide any more than Canute could
command the sea. midas demands
alone could drain the world of silver.
Some of the Important Facts.
Take a few disconnected facts.
Within a few months the American |
government melted down 100,000,0 900 !
silver dollars for export to India,
China and Japan.
Immediately afterward, about a
month ago, the treasury fixed the
maximum price for silver at $101h.
1t then announced that export licenses
for silver would be granted only on
condition that the maximum price
was not exceeded. This was to stop
the spectators. who had been buy
ing silver at 81 and reselling It at
sl0S and $1.07. AS the government
pays only 81 an ounce its profit is ~
cents, which covers the expense of
melting and recoining
France tried to stop the leak by
demonetizing silver. When 15,OO0,-
GEO small nickel and silver coins We're
struck off by France with only 81
per cent value in real silver they
within week of issue as il
by magic. Who or what sucked them
up so furtively that the French gov
eminent did not know the new coins {
had disappeared until there literally
was not one in circulation? Was 1t
boarding by people afraid of the wars
after effects, or had some broker for {
4 foreign agent secretly bought the !
coins up? The tinanciers do not
know. {
American silver dollars may not be
,arried out of the country to an eX-
ent exceeding 5000 for each traveller, S
TbA story is told of 81 United
States coinage presses this summer t
icing unable to turn .off silver dimes t
Is fast as the commercial demand for \
hose dimes. You may use the silver |
o buy bullets, but you can't use sill a
Ter in bullets. Why did trade sud 6
lenly need so many more dimes?
So fast was silver leaking away I
rom Maxico IN Janan and China md &