Mohave County miner and our mineral wealth., 1918-11-23

silver production went as low as 78,- COG, ,00O ounces and never once exceed ed 162,0O0,000 ounces, but the dimes didn't disappear nor did the price jump to $1.08.
 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 real ly used as coin? About as often as $500 bills. We knew it was there if we wanted it, but we didn't bother us- ing it.
 Then an explanation is given of the explanation. The nations having em- bargoed gold for foreign trade, the in creased demand comes for silver, but this explanation likewise sets so much bunk. True, gold is chiefly used for foreign trade and the various govern ments have forbidden the exportation of gold, except with special license, but the very same governments have also forbidden the exportation of sil- yer except under special license, so the real explanation of silver almost doub- ling in price narrows down to two questions which \no man can answer, bluff he never so wisely:
 Are the people privately hoarding silver coins?
 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-
 tion, for hoarding 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 hoarding-
 also of secret agents for foreign pow
 CTS buying up the hoards at a price
 above the minted face value.
 But that does not explain the ab-
 sorption of American dimes, and il
 would take powerful lot of proof tc
 convince sane people that the Ameri,
 can public has taken to salting away |, silver dimes in old stocking toes ano
 unused teapots., Still the cardina
 fact remains-dimes here and small CT coins in France were absorbed as Ii
 by magic. What theme for new o. Henry-secret agents gathering uE coins, melting coins into bars in some } secret cellar and then smuggling thu : bars to an India or Germany! Much stranger things have happen ed in the present war and it may b' that while we are sniffing along SD! trails that are two years old and deat cold, another spider is weaving war; and a wool around the silver coin O. the allies against the day of reckon , ing when indemnities must be paid. Consider for moment; with tn silver production of the world down t.
 175,O00,000 ounces plus, worth $l al ounce plus, it wouldn't be much of : trick for a country that has spen bribe funds by hundreds of millions t, : absorb the slver coinage of the world : The silver coinage from the hints O r all the world from 1885 to 1915 doe' not total OOO,0OO,OOO- and what ar 3 billions in this war?
 } If Germany could by hook or crook : secret agent or plot, absorb the $s,
 900, O,OOO,OO0 of gold coined since 1888 7 and the less than $5,000, 100000 of sil l yer, she could pretty nearly put tn l world on a paper money basis, whel } indemnities would not be so hard t F pay. They could be paid in paper 3 Scraps of paper"-and the pape could be exchanged for trade, and tn trick of absorbing the allies coin cur r rency would be burglars jimmy t.
 force open the worlds doors of futur F trade with Germany. The idea is re 5 commended to the novelists and dram . atists who are still following old SD, ] trails.
 !. But the absorption of silver by Indi = was alarming and grave enough with = out recourse to fiction. That story
 too, will some day be told, story o r fact, not fiction, with secret interna tional plotters enough to put the wild l est novelist to shame; plots tha
 reached from assassinations in Van :, couver and San Francisco to Bomba, = and Calcutta. Five years ago, a yea e before the war, investigated and toll 5 something of almost $2 ,0OO,O00 of rev f olutionary funds sent from Vancouve and San Francisco to India. Tha s was two years before the British sec l ret agent was shot down in the cour = room of Vancouver. In fact, I ma, now acknowledge, it was the imperia