Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1894 — FALL OF SILVER AND WHEAT. [ARTICLE]

FALL OF SILVER AND WHEAT.

The Rt. Hon. llpnry C'lnapilo Speaks on Ihe Subject In E liiihuri-li. An important speech, touching upon wheat, silver, gold and American mining. railroads and lard mortgages, was delivered in Edinburgh, by "the Rt. Hon. Henry Chaplin, conservative, president of the boaitl of agriculture in Lord Salisbury's last government. The speech was an address to a crowded confetonce of tho Scottish chambers of husbandry, and had for its subject “Bimetallism in Relation to Agricultural Depression.” Tho speaker declared that agricultural depression

was chiefly due to the steady and heavy fall in the pricos of produce, which ho claimed was due to the monetary changes of 1873 and could only bo stopped by reverting to the previous monetary : ystem. Nobody could foresee where the present fall in prioes would end. According to the latest table, the fall from 1873 to 1893 of 40 percent, in wheat amply illustrate this. The British commissioners he added, studied the prices of wheat in America in 18O', and believed that it could never be exported cheaper than -10 shillings per qua ter. But superior Indian wheat was sold last week at Hull for 19 shillings 3 pence per quarter. Touchin r upon the farmers of America, he sai;l that they, es iccially.woro Ixsing i uiued and becoming baikrupt faster evoa than tho Brit sh farm or. i Others contend that over-production is responsible for the fall in prices, but he claimed that s atieties i-how that the production of wheat has decreased, although the p ices have fallen. Therefore, trom the point of view of the speaker, it was farcical aud ridiculous to attribute the fall in prices to that cause. The real cause, he said, was demonetization of si vo'r in 1873 and the subsequent divergence of the relative values of metals, which enabl.d the silver-using countries like Jn Ha to export wheat at the piesent low price.