Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1885 — THE DECREASE OF GOLD. [ARTICLE]

THE DECREASE OF GOLD.

A Serious Financial Problem. {Washington special to Chicago»Times.] One month ago attention was called in these dispatches not merely to the decrease of gold and increase of silver owned by the Government, but to the fact that the decrease of gold and the increase of silver was going on in an accelerating ratio. A striking exhibit of that fact is made in the Treasurer’s statement of assets and liabilities on the Ist of May. On Jan. 2, 1884, the Government owned $154,000,000 of gold. On Jan. 1, 1883, it owned $141,000,000 of gold, a decrease of a little more than a million a month. Three months later, April 1, 1885, it owned $125,000,000 of gold, a decrease, of more than $5,000,000 a month. The exact figures for a month ago were $125,793,256. On the Ist inst. the Government owned $117,927,394 of gold, a loss in thirty days of $7,865,862. At the rate of loss for the past month the gold in the Treasury would last about fifteen months, but as each month shows a much larger decrease than the month before, it may be doubted whether the supply of gold will Last till the end of the calendar year. Of course, this reduction of the stock of gold is due to the fact that the Government is paying out gold and taking in silver. Last February some Now York bankers expressed to a high officer of the Treasury their opinion that if the silver coinage were suspended by August, 1886, it would be soon enough to prevent any change in the monetary standard, but at the rate at which the Government’s gold is turning into silver it will have lost all its gold or will have to compel its creditors to take silver long before August of next year. Look at the increase of silver in Uncle Sam’s pocket. The increase in 1884 was something more than $1,500,000 a month. In the first three months of the year it increased about $7,000,000. Last month it increased nearly $6,000,000. The figures are $5,953,525.