People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 September 1893 — LIMITED COINAGE. [ARTICLE]

LIMITED COINAGE.

It li Not Bimetallism—A Double Standard Cannot Well Be Maintained Under I he Old Bland law. Mr. Heard's argument for the 16 to 1 jatio last week seems to have been rather in favor of the circulatibn of the silver dollars than of free coinage and a double standard. Mr. Heard declared that while he believed in free coinage at the present ratio, he would rather have limited coinage at 16 to 1 than free coinage at an increased ratio. ' He cited the $700,000,000 in silver Which France keeps in circulation as perfectly good money at a ratio of to 1, He also put in evidence Mr. Carlisle's calculation of the cost of recoining onr present standard dollars into dollars of the 20 to 1 standard. To the Republic it seems that the French system is the complete answer to the Carlisle calculation. France keeps her silver on an equality with gold, long ago ceased coining silver. When we cease coining 412>£ grain vdollars —assuming that at 16 to 1 we could not have free coinage without going instantly to a single silver standard—the stock we have on hand can be floated and circulated just as easily without as with recoinage into new dollars. All the financial world would care to know would be that the government had deoided upon a ratio of 20 to 1 in final redemption, and that its honor was pledged to the policy. Whatever fear may exipt as a consequence of silver coinage is not founded upon our present stock, but upon the ability of the government to continue coinage indefinitely at 16 to 1. Perhaps that fear is entirely groundless. At any rate it exists, and has played its part in the withdrawal of capital from investment Hut through it all, we must remember that the fear is not aroused by the stock of dollars already coined. It is the uncertainty of our future policj', not the present silver supply, which has affected those who can see no god but gold. If a ratio of 20 to 1 were adopted there would be no need of recoining our present dollars.

Limited coinage is not bimetallism. A double standard cannot well be provided under any such law as the old Bland act The government can issue silver dollars and can make, month by month, a nominal increase of the currency; but the question presented by a limited coinage is only whether the gold standard shall remain or whether we shall coin enough to force gold out altogether and put us on a single silver standard. In other words, the question will be whether we can keep enough gold on hand to float our silvertoken money. It is exactly the question presented in the issue of paper money. Under a true bimetallic system the people could get either gold or silver money by taking a prescribed amount of bullion to the mint. They would have command over the supplies of the two metals. Business would regulate its own money. The doubt about maintaining a bimetallic ratio of 16 to 1 is of our own creation. In 1878 we dropped bimetallic coinage. Since that time there have been gfeat changes in the commercial relations of the two metals. Consequently we have a gap of twenty years in which we have no experience whatever with free coinage of silver. For the sake of securing a return to bimetallism the sincere friend of free coinage' is willing to concede something in the matter of ratio. As Mr. Bland has said several times, the ratio is not the essential. The thing is to get full command of silver as money—not as token money, but as equal legal tender. We can undoubtedly maintain our present supply, and as much more, in the way France has chosen. But France sustains her’s by adopting the gold standard. What is there for bimetallism in that? It is no advance toward an equitable standard of deferred payments, when we keep a silver stock afloat by means of a gold reserve. The gold dollar is the standard now and would be under any probable arrangement of limited coinage. It is possible to have a thorough system of bimetallism with a comparatively small amount of silver in circulation; and it is possible to have all the evil effects of a gold standard with as m\ich silver nominally afloat as France has. What the people need is not such or such an amount of silver in a treasury statement, but the right to use the silver dollar as a final standard of payment Limited coinage at sto 1 would not help the debtor as long as silver was token money floated with a gold reserve. Free coinage 20 to 1 would do more for debtors than our present method under a ratio of 5 to 1. We are on a gold basis and have been since 1873—0 rat least the resumption of specie payments. In giving the secretary of ♦ the treasury power to redeem certrin notes in silver, we have forced upon him the responsibility of deciding whether, after all that has happened in twenty years, we can maintain a ratio of 16 to L Congress and the people ought to decide that point. Neither the west nor the south, the bimetallist sections, wishes anything beyond a prudent effort to restore full silver coinage.—St. Louis Republic.