The Llano colonist. [volume] (Llano, Calif.) 191?-1937, 1922-03-18

NA~No
During the American Civil War, gold
skunk out Of sight like the contenpti-
bic cur and coward it is; and only
sneaked back in the game to put The
American nation into an unnecessarily
big Indebtedness, which hasn't been
paid yet and is still vampire-like sap
ping the life blood Of the nation.
We are well aware Of the fact that
the bulk Of business to-day is transac-
ted with non-Iegal-tender bank notes
and deposit currency and the wide
spread unemployment throughout the
nation and the millions of farmers rum
ed through its fundamentally, isel-
oquent testimony as to its pernicious
character.
The claim is advanced in some quar-
tiers that the value of gold must be
maintained. That if all the labor ex-
pended in the search and mining for
gold is taken into account, its present
proportionality Of value is not too
high. It sounds very plausible, IN
deed. But why should the high value
of gold be any more sustained than
the value Of silverp If the labor cost
in prospecting and mining for silver
had been considered, its former high
er value should also have been sus-
tanned by law, but it was not. The
writer has done whole lot of work
prospecting for gold and silver for
which he never has reaped any re-
turn. Look at all the former tools,
primitive machinery, and household
goods that in the course Of time have
been thrown in the discard and which
were a dead loss to the owners. Why
shouldn't their value also have been
sustainedp
Cold is no more necessary for sat
lstactory monetary system than is plat
mum or diamond. or any other rare
but practically useless thing. Vanity
and suneptious greed are the back
ground for the high value of gold and
diamonds. and the bubble will burst
as soon as the people will get on to
the little game.
Many of the different money theo-
ries are gotten up for no other pur-
pose than to confuse the people. The
money question is a mighty simple pro-
position when you once realize that
producers Of every description can on
ly pay for what they get with what
they themselves produce or the useful
services they can perform. Legally
and publicly recognize all such things
as means Of equitable payment, and
only enforce contracts when they are
equitable. All negotiable contracts
should be forfeited and outlawed for
ever. This would settle the money
problem.
The disparity between the monies
of the world entirely disappear if all
Of them everywhere were issued in a
definite relation and in the same pro-
portion to productive labor as ought
to be the case. 1t costs the same
amount Of labor to produce a given
article in one country as in another,
when raw material is obtainable on the
same terms. In domestic as well as in
International trade goods should only
be exchanged for othre goods and on
no other condition. The deIusion Of
favorable balance of trade would
then dissolve in thin air and be blown
into millions of smithereens, never 10
be refrigerated in the human mind
again.
Nothing should ever be exported that
the people require for their own use
at home. And on the other hand moth
ing should ever be imported that can
be produced at home. Commerce with
other communities and other countries
should be reduced to the utmost min
mum and carried on at a minimum
expense. When that is done and when
equity rules locally then the producer
will prosper, and not before.
The debt system is entirely unnec-
essary and as a vicious imposition Il
should be repudiated and never be toll
Grated again.
DEMAND REVOCATION