People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1894 — THE SILVER QUESTION. [ARTICLE]

THE SILVER QUESTION.

An Argument in Favor of America Waiting Until Gold Standard England Shall Get Squeezed. Is bimetallism and diplomatically possible, that is, can the consent and co-operation of a sufficient number of important commercial nations be secured to establish the bimetallic system on a broad and enduring basis? We reach here what is mainly a field of conjecture. No one can speak with confidence on the subject; but at least it would at present appear that the key of the situation is in the hands of England. France is not likely to take the initiative in the matter. That country for seventy years sustained the bimetallic system to the inexpressible benefit of mankind, yet when that system was temporarily broken up by the action of Germany, France was treated by the gold monometallic nations generally as if she were asking something for herself in the efforts made for the restoration of silver coinage. France, naturally enough, got tired of this and now stands on her dignity in relation to the matter. In the struggle for gold she has put herself into the best position of all the nations and rightly feels that she can bear the strain as long as the rest of them. Germany, on the other hand, stands iu the attitude of having brought

about the present agitation. The hardest thing that humanity knows is to confess that one has been in the wrong, especially when the consequences have been highly injurious to others. For Germany to take the initative in the restoration of silver would be to confess that she did an unwise and mischievous thing in 1873. Germany could, however, follow England in such a movement without injury to her pride and without loss of prestige. What can the United States do? The United States has already done too much in an active way in its wellmeant but injudicious efforts to promote bimetallism. Our coinage of $2,000,000 a month, under the Bland-Alli-son bill of 1878, was directly against the interests of bimetallism, while our purchase of 4,500,000 ounces of silver bullion a month, under the Sherman act of 1890, was an even worse strategic blunder. By these acts we simply put our own fingers in the door and took the squeezing which belonged by right to England and Germany, which has brought about the trouble. The remonetization of the silver dollar in 1878 was all right; but our actual coinage should have been limited to what was needed for souvenirs and numismatic collections. After 1876 the true policy of bimetallism required that silver should at once be allowed to fall to the bottom without any attempt to bolster it up. In that situation it would here have been for the common interest of all the nations equally to restore it to its place. By procrastinating this catastrophe for fifteen years we have simply obscured the issue and enabled our adversaries to declare, with some show of reason, though still falsely, that it is the large silver production of the period which has brought about this result; whereas, had the fall taken place at once, no one could have been so blind or prejudiced as to fail to see that it was silver demonetization, and not silver production, which caused this tremendous effect after the comparative stability of the seventy preceding years. The best thing we can do now is to thoroughly instruct our people in the true principles of the subject, keep our forces well in hand, and awnit « ir«i» Bad as the situation is for •'»<•>» s .n>< * all, we can stand it longer » Europe. We are richer, freer , than the greatest of its have a much wider margin of lu we have vast undevelojte I rr..ur,c« which contain the possibilities of indefinite wealth.

To England, on the other hand, the events of the past twenty yer rx have brought continually increasing disasters, which are fast teaching her people that the selfish position which she assumed in 1816, when she became a gold-monometallie nation, and which enabled her for a long time to reap a profit from the fluctuations of international commerce, is no longer tenable. The change of English sentiment during the past ten and five years, and especially in the last two years, has been truly remarkable. The universities and colleges have become bimetallist. Ido not know of a single British professor of political economy who is a gold monometallist; while several, and these the most distinguished, are active, working bimetallists. The East Indian interest is, as it has always been, for bimetallism. The cotton spinning interest is bimetallist; the shipping interest is bimetallist; the agricultural interest is bimetallist. The Irish, under the leadership of Archbishop Walsh, are fast coming into life for bimetallism. A selfish, shallow, supercilious gold monometallism is intrenched to-day in the London banking interest, and in the London city press; but to-morrow it may be driven from even this refuge. Lord Herschel’s commission of 1887 divided six and six on the question of practical participation by England in a bimetallic league. Since that time one of its ablest monometallist members, Mr. Leonard H. Courtney, has become a bimetallist. Mr. Balfour, the conservative leader of the house of commons, is a fighting bimetallist. The recent grotesque failure of the British government to fill the break in the great dam of its Indian finances has only added strength to the bimetallist argument. Changed conditions like these have for the first time created a reasonable hope that England may yet take the lead in restoring silver to its true place in the commerce and exchanges of the world. At any rate, this is our “best hold,” and with it, for the present, we must be content. —Gen. Walker.