People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1896 — CERNUSCHI ON FREE COINAGE. [ARTICLE]

CERNUSCHI ON FREE COINAGE.

What the Eminent Economist Bays About the United States Acting Alone. Henri Cernuschi was tho famous French writer who won fame as a champion of international bimetallism and an opponent of independent bimetallism by any single nation. He has been frequently quoted by advocates of the gold standard in this country in their endeavor to combat the arguments of the advocates of “16 to 1.” Therefore the following, which comprises the closing paragraphs of an article written for the Paris Econorniste, is of interest: The present monetary policy of the United States is consequently very advantageous to the interests of England, a gold monometallic country, but it is utterly ruinous as regards the foreign financial relations of the United States, and especially for its native producers. This is why, inasmuch as England’s attitude prevents the realization of international bimetallism and condemns one half of the world to gold monometallism and the other half to silver monometallism. I would not hesitate, were I a citizen of the United States, to become—l, Cernuschi, the father of international bimetallism, as I am everywhere x called—a silver monometallist From a theoretical point of view, the free coinage of silver at 16 to 1, re-es-tablished by the United States without the concurrence of Europe, would be a vicious solution, but it would nevertheless be a step in the direction of international bimetallism; for, under the regime of the new standard, the productive power of the United States would receive so enormous an impulse, and this development would have such a disastrous effect upon the economic and.financial interests of England and the other European nations now governed by the gold standard, that it may be confidently predicted in advance that the course of events would force the adoption of international bimetallism as the only true solution even upon those who today deny the possibility and efficacy of it.