People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1894 — A SILVER THREAD. [ARTICLE]

A SILVER THREAD.

The lilaml Bill May Not Bo What Trii* BlmetullUt* Meek hut It I* a Concession to Labor. We do not look upon tho measure (the Bland seigniorage bill), as we have frequently said, as of any great importance to the silver question. It is not directly in the interest of free coinage, which is, and can be, the only logical and scientific basis of true bimetallism. We hope to see the bill pass, not because we think for a moment that it is in any sense a bimetallic measure, bnt because wo think that wo can see that the more fact that the United States government in adding to its stock of silver coins will strengthen the cause of bimetallism abroad. It was announced a few days ago that Chancellor Caprivi, of Germany, had submitted a proposal to the bundesrath for the coinage of 23,000,000 marks of silver, nearly 84,500,000. This will really do more for tho silver market than the Bland bill, as Germany will probably have to buy that much bullion, while the operation of the Bland bill will not require tho purchase of an ounce. And the action of the imperial German government, if tho chancellor’s recommendation is adopted, will be in the nature of a notice to the goldites that Germany does not intend to sacrifice her silver coin.

Still the mere coinage of four million doilars or more in that country or fifty million dollars more or less in this will have no direct effect to restore the double standard. There is but one rational solution of the monetary prob» lem, and that is to restore silver as a money metal in the true sense; by which we'inean to make it at all times convertible into money at the established ratio at the will of the holders. Coining a portion of the volume of silver in the world into token money, even though the money bo made a legal tender, does not make the metal a money metal in the scientific monetary sense. There is one view on which the friends of bimetallism may look with distrust if not disfavor upon all such temporizing measures as the seigniorage bill and the new Herman coinage proposition. They are calculated to defer the ultimate restoration of free coinage. It was suggested the other day that the work of coining the bullion in the treasury will occupy the mints until after the next general election and thus tend to take the silver question out of the campaign for the choice of congressmen. This suggestion, is sufficient to indicate what we mean by saying that friends of free coinage may naturally fear the effect of the Bland bill. —San Francisco Chronicle.