People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1895 — “Uruguary’s Queer Currency." [ARTICLE]

“Uruguary’s Queer Currency."

How. I. W. Avery, the special envoy of the Atlanta Exposition, who is traveling in South America. interesting the people there in the great southern fair, writes to the Atlanta Journal under date of Feb. 25, 1895, from Monte Video, Uruguay, the following of which is an extract that will be food for thought to the student of our own nation’s finances: AN ASTONISHING CURRENCY. “But the astonishing thing here is the currency. They have no gold, only silver and paper, but their money here, all of it, is worth more than English or American gold. The English sovereign, worth $4.80 in American gold is worth here only $4.70, and the American gold worth a premium elsewhere, is worth here in their money, only 96c, A’A. P r i ces are correspond.ng;y high. A newspaper worth !

2£ cents in Rio. 3 cents in Buenos Ayres and 2 cents in Chili, is worth 4 cents in gold here.” Think of it readers, a country in which gold is at a discount even with the stamp of England upon it, and Uncle Sam’s 16 to 1 gold dollar only worth 96c in Uruguay silver and paper. To you who worship at the shrine of the gold standard and talk about gold going to a premium if the nation’s mints are opened to silver, this little nut will not be easily cracked. But read another clipping from Mr, Avery’s letter, and notice that prosperity seems strangely enough, to be in harmonius accompaniment to this fanatical silver heresy, where “dishonest silver dollars,” and “fiat paper money” is worth more than British gold by at least 4 per cent. THE MOST FINISHED CITY*. “Montevideo is a beautiful city and the most finished I have seen in South America, taken as a whole. Everything is complete. Its streets are wide, thoroughly paved, and its houses elegant and completely cosmopolitan. Its system of street names and house numbers is absolutely perfect, and done in the most artistic style with ornamental numbers and names. Its street car lines are without number and penetrate everywhere, and its system is perfect. It has the most beautiful parks, which are kept superbly. This city has its main streets, too. arched with gas jets at short intervals and the jets are. covered with many colored glass globes, and at the corners the street lamp posts have pyramids of these colored lamps and when, as last night, the carnival was running (Sunday), as it was preliminary to Lent, the effect was simply indescribable.”