Year: 1878

the Day Fixed Tor Resumption?


The Chicago Staats-zeitung, a gold
standard newspaper, says


Within few days the price of gold has
risen from l0OSi to l0l and l0l L, while at
the same time the market value of silver
bullion has fallen in London to 81 I'd. per
ounce, at which rate the intrinsic value of
one OF the new legal tender silver dollars
is exactly 50 1923 in gold. And still with
in seventy-seven days from the present
date the greenbaCk paper dollar is to be-
come the equivalent in value both of the
gold dollar, which is now worth in paper
l0lll / cents, and of the silver dollar, which
at this moment is worth, in gold, not quite
So cents.


This is remarkable problem. over
which it would not be strange if Mr.. John
Sherman were to feel little depressed.
If the movement that has Just begun con-
tinues, the gold dollar will have risen sew
eral per cent, above the value of the paper
dollar by the lst Of next January, and a
strong desire to have the latter redeemed
will be manifested 1t is true that Sher-
man can pay out silver dollars for green
backs, but certainly not more than he has
and when his supply is exhausted he will
necessarily give gold. To the present
moment hardly 100000 silver dollars
have been coined, and this amount can
be hardly increased to more than S25,-
100000 by New Years; and not even the
whole of this lies in the treasury. The
supply of silver dollars, therefore would
not go far if the greenbacks flowed in for
redemption in anything like considerable
amounts, and when it came to an end it
would he necessary to resort to gold.
That would be very good for those who
would receive gold dollars for their green
backs, but the greater their number the
sooner would the time arrive at which
there would not he gold enough in the
treasury to pay the interest on the national
debt. and it would become necessary to
meet that with the silver that might have
been coined III the mean time.


As soon as that should occur, the in
trinsic difference in value between gold
and silver. the effect of which we have
thus far been prevented from feeling by
artificial means, would manifest itself.
We would then have to offer foreigners,
who have ino'rcverence for the fiat" of
congress and do not understand how n
can be called whole, as a full dollar a
coin that in the markets of the world is
worth only elghty-seven one hundredths of
Il dollar. 1t is true that they would have
to accept it if they could get nothing bet
ter; but they would naturally consider
themselves defrauded of an eighth of what
Justly due them. The question would
then, from merely national, become an
international one.


While up to this time the efforts of the
United States to make two coins whose
intrinsic value differs by II per cent of
equal value, having been smiled at abroad
us fantastic dream, the accusation OF
deliberate swindling would then be angri,


y hurled against us. To defend ourselves
successfully against this charge it would
be necessary to convince the world, first,
that it is possible to make sixteen ounces
of silver equal to one ounce of gold at a
time when one ounce of gold will buy
eighteen ounces of silver in London; or,
at least, secondly, that Il belief in the pos
Sibility of such thing has really and
sincerely been entertained.


IL Wbultl Dt llllDDSNlblt " tOllNlI lllt'
world of the truth ofeither of these things
surely not Of the first. Asto the second,
we could at best show only that a majority
of the people and their representatives
had lost themselves in the childish fancy
that the reconciliation of the silver dol
lar in the United States would raise the
value of silver in the mar
kcts of the world. That, however,
would establish nothing further than
that the reconciliation of the silver dol
lar was founded upon deceitful hope.
1t would not help to create a belief in the
honesty of those who continue to declare,
even after the dissipation of their hope
and after the fall of the intrinsic gold val
ne of the silver dollar within year from
9ll3 to S6i5 cents, that it nevertheless
must be received as the equivalent of Il
gold dollar.


Thrown into the trade of the foreign
world, through interest payments of cred
itors of the nation residing abroad, the
silver dollar would at once fall, beside the
gold dollar, to its bare bullion value.
The period within which this deprecia.
tion in value would occur would be deter
mined slowly by the coinage capacity OF
our mints. The premium on gold would
rise in proportion to the rate at which the
silver dollars would be coined and turned
out, until, as now in Austria, the entire
difference in the bullion value of the two
coins would be reached, viz: IA to is per
cent. Then we would have precisely as
in Austria, neither more nor less than a
silver currency of the same value THAT is,
l3 per cent. lower than at PRESENT. while
gold would be simply commodity to be
bought and sold, as it has been for nearly
seventeen years.


If the proportion between the values Of
the two metals would always remain the
same, such a condition of things might be
cndurablc. At all events, if we are to be
compelled to choose between a silver cur
rency with gold at premium, in any de-
gree stable, of Is per cent, and a deluge
of irredeemable rag money, there cannot
be moments doubt that the former is
infinitely the lesser evil.