People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1894 — SCIENCE OF BIMETALLISM. [ARTICLE]

SCIENCE OF BIMETALLISM.

Free Coinage tbe Only Rational Remedy for the Monetary Disturbance*. In discussing the recent further sharp decline in silver the London Daily News says: “A full trial has just been given in the United States, under the most favorable auspices, to the attempt to support the price of silver by artificial means The failure has been so absolute that it is difficult to believe that other governments or a combination of governments should seriously undertake the task.” This refers, of course, to the operations of the purchase clause of the Sherman law, and, possibly, to the limited coinage provision of the Bland act In one sense the remark is true. The parity betw en gold and silver as money metals can never be secured or maintained by such artificial measures as those mentioned. The fundamental, theory, let us say the scientific doctrine of bimetallism, implies the requirement that the governments shall provide mints in which all holders of either of the monetary metals may convert the same into coin bearing a government stamp to indicate its value. The ratio of value at which gold and silver may thus be coined under this system, while apparently arbitrary, still approximately represents the relative abundance of tbe two metals. Free coinage, then, is not an artificial device for determining and maintaining the parity of gold and silver at the established ratio, but is a natural or at least a rational and scientific plan. And it is the only rational because the only effective remedy for the restoration of silver as a money metal. It does not follow, however, that the tentative efforts of the friends of silver coinage in the United States to stem the wide-spread movements for the universal iMid final demonetization of silver have not been effective to a certain degree. The London paper from which we have quoted speaks- of these measures as absolute failures, but that is absurd. The operation of the Bland coinage act and the Sherman purchase law added something over $450,000,000 to the silver circulation of the United States. And aside from the influence upon the market value of silver bullion which the demand for that amount had, the moral effect upon the monetary world has been enormous. While it did not serve to maintain the parity of silver with gold at the fixed ratio, because the chief countries of the world, including our own, have abandoned scientific bimetallism,» still the United States stood in the breach and prevented the worst results. It was only when we surrendered to the movement headed by President Cleveland that the serious and continuing decline began. The action of the India council in closing the Indian mints was a secondary cause brought about by the certainty that the United States were about to repeal the purchase act. The Bland coinage act, the Sherman purchase law and the pending measure to utilize the silver seigniorage in the treasury may all be considered as friendly to silver without being directly in the interest of scientific bimetallism. But the only rational remedy, we repeat, for the money disturbances which have paralyzed the industries and commerce of the world is tc return to free coinage.—San Francisco Chronicle.