People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1894 — A DESPERATE SITUATION. [ARTICLE]

A DESPERATE SITUATION.

Mr. Mnreton Frewen, of Englund, Gives His Views on the Rehabilitation of Silver -There Must Be a Return to the White Metal. During the past five days silver has fallen nearly three cents per ounce, and now that the secretary of state for India has decided to sell Indian council drafts without the restriction of a minimum price, these sales must inevitably further weaken the market for bullion silver. It must not be lost sight of that the government of India is behind hand in these sales to no less ar. extent that $35,000,000 since the mints of India were closed last June, so that, as a matter of fact, that government has at this time awaiting sale almost the entire silver product of the United States mines for an entire year. This estimate will give you some idea of the desperate condition of Indian finance since India closed her mints last June. Up to June last, India had for very many years enjoyed such a large balance of exports over imports that this balance enabled her to pay the gold interest on the large sums she had borrowed in England, but since the closing of the mints her exports have fallen away as if magic, so that India, a debtor country, has at this time a large excess of imports over exports. Now. as to the effects of the fall in the price of silver during the past few days. The Manchester Guardian commences its le iding article with these words:

“It is probably no exaggeration to say that the present week has been a period of bewilderment and even consternation on the Manchester Royal exchange without any parallel in the history of that institution.” And the Guardian proceeds to say: “With the allotment of council bills the commercial world learned with amazement that the secretary of state for India, who was already in arrears to the extent of £7,000,000 with hissales, has abandoned his minimum rate in order to dispose of bills to the ridiculous' amount of £1,500. The incident recalls to mind the famous sale three years since in New York of about £2OO worth of silver, which threw the Indian budget £1,000,000 sterling wrong within a week of its publication, depressed government and all other silver securities to the extent of many millions more, and similarly affected every current commercial transaction with India, China and all other silver currency countries.”

Such is the financial position in Great Britain to-day. The eastern exchancres have now relapsed into such a Condition of helpless muddle and weakness that our export trades to 700,000.000 of our best customers are almost annihilated, and because this “free trade” nation can no longer sell to Asia we can no longer buy at any decent prices from America In every section of the in-

habited world to-day the si.ver poison is in the financial system. You will gather from the above statements which I send you from the moat important Gladstonian newspapers without any exception in England that the complete ignorance and levity of Mr. Gladstone and his advisers in experimenting with the currency of that empire is exciting the utmost hostility on the part of the industrial community generally, while the advocates of currency reform in this country are displaying in every direction renewed courage and increased activity. At the same time so demoralized is the Indian office at the havoc created since June last that I rather anticipate panic sales of council bills during the next few months, which may bring the eastern exchanges some points lower and weaken the market for silver bullion by several cents per ounce more; and yet the pressure of the commercial world to prevent such sales at knockout prices will be very great There are to-daj’ in every one of our great commercial centers vast numbers of merchants trading with the east to whom a slight further fall in exchange rates spells ruin, writ large; but for the most part these victims are sem'--paralyzed by the very imminence of the danger, and this being the case any effective protest is hardly to lie expected. Turning to Germany, the nation which at Brussels was only second to Great Britain in hostility, or at least indifference to the “silver question,” we now find the silver men in the new reichstag practically holding the balance of power, and that a German currency commission has been appointed to consider the position. Of its members Bamberger, Grendt, Kardorf, Mirbach and Leuschner, all but Bamberger are bimetallists. The scope of the deliberations of this commission will be best understood from the speech which the Prussian minister of agriculture (Von Heyden) made in the Prussian upper house. He said: “If it be expected that the currency question is the lever by which our agriculture could receive quick and successful assistance, I think this is hoping too much. The currence question is not likely to find so rapid a solution. But after all that the newspapers l»ave of late published, after the letter of the Prussian conservative union to the chancellor, and the answer of the chancellor, I am empowered, in the name of the government, to declare that we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that the low price of silver has an influence on the general level of prices, and that the constant fluctuations in the price of silver have an unfavorable effect on our working population. lam further empowered to declare that it is not the intention to have another theoretical investigation into the whole currency question—for on that point we have already ample material—but to make an earnest effort to deal with this question in a practical manner. Wo shall have to investigate whether, and how, after the measures lately taken in the United States and in India, something can be done to rehabilitate, or, at least, to raise the value of silver and to lessen the fluctuations in the price of silver. Lastly, we shall have to see whether Germany is in apposition to do this alone, by her own legislative action, or whether international arrangements are possible, advisable or necessary. ” And Reuter’s telegrams include this statement:

“The agricultural society of France has been discussing the question of the free coinage of silver, and has agreed to a declaration that the Latin union, supported by the United States, would be strong enough to impose monetary law upon the entire world. It has also resolved that if a new relation was adopted between the two metals the modification ought to be applied to gold. ” We may rely upon it that events are now shaping themselves more rapidly than appeared possible a few months ago, and that in spite of an honest criminal ignorance of the question in high places, the world of trade and industry is resolute to return to the white metal, and to that we must come if even through a deeper depth of immediate distress.—Moreton Frewen, of London, in Washington (D. C.) Post