The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1921-11-11
WHAT or THE GOLD sTANDARD7

Mr.. H. q Wells, said to be the
worlds brainest and most gifted
writer. has come to the United States
at the solicitation of the New York
World and Chicago Tribune, to re-
port the proceedings of the ''disarma-
ment Conference" soon to be in ses-
sion in the city of Washington.
The Jacksonville Metropolis made
arrangements with the World and
the Tribune to print Mr.. Wells arti-
cIes and in its Saturday edition print
ed the initial number.
From it we make the following ex-
tract:
This winter more people will suf-
fer dreadful things and more people
will die untimely through the clash
of 1914 than suffered and died in the
first year of the war.
Chief among these injuries is the
progressive economic breakdown,
the magnitude of which we are only
beginning to apprehend The break
down is real decay that spreads
and spreads In time of universal
shortage there is an increasing
paralysis in production; and there is a
paralysis of production because the
monetary system of the world, which
was sustained by the honest cooper
alton of governments, is breaking
down. The fluctuations in the real
value of money. become greater and
greater and they shake and shatter
the entire fabric of social co-opera-
ton
Our civilization is, materially a
cash and credit system, dependent
on mems confidence in the value of
money. But now money fails us and
cheats us; we work for wages and
they give us uncertain paper No one
now dare make contracts ahead;
no one can fix up a stable wages
agreement; no one knows what one
hundred dollars or francs or pounds
will mean in two years time.
What is the good of saving? What
is the good of foresight? Business
and employment become impossible.
Unless money can be steadied and
restored, our economic and social
life will go on disintegrating, and
it can be restored only by a world
effort"
And yet before the great world war
the world was supposed to have been
on gold basis.
What did it amount to? Did it not
fail of its purpose? Did it keep up
49,, cn,,;1;I1r;,,x,, ~ <hn xxD,sldss 6x
ances?
If the world had been on the
double standard basis" of both gold
and silver, or on a purely paper basis,
or broadly speaking, IL it had been
on fiat basis. could ithave been in
a worse plight than is here pictured
by Mr. Wells?
In the last analysis-as we have all
along CONFERENCE.-The money of a
nation is no stronger or no weaker
than the nation itself.
II the United States had gone down
in the great world war: If its indus
tries had collapsed and its govern
ment been overthrown the same as
Russia, its money and its bonds would
have been in no better shape.
Gold does not represent the strength
of a nation.
The business of a nation is
its Strengths farm oper-
alton, its manufactures, its
traffic, trade and commerce the
solvency and ability of its in
habitaqts to respond to the call of
their government ip the payment Of
taxes for governmental purposes.
That's what makes nation strong,
that is it which gives nation its
resiliency and power.
In nut shell. The sovereign pow
err of the government to coin and is
sue money, to impose and collect tax
es and the soIvency and ability of its
citizens to pay the same on call rests
the financial basis of a nation.
Gold is too scarce to serve as the
basis for the worlds financial obli-
cations