People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1897 — Wholesale Robbery the Cause. [ARTICLE]

Wholesale Robbery the Cause.

Under the heading “Why India Starves,” the San Francisco Star says: “It has a population of 20,000,000, receiving an average income of $375 per head ,annually. They have to pay, by taxation, $100,000,000 annually to officials, mostly British, and the amount is largely spent in England; besides this they must pay $125,000,000 for interest and pensions; all must be paid in gold, and further impoverishment has resulted from stopping the coinage of silver. Thus, while they average an Income of little over one cent a day, nearly a fourth of that cent goes for virtual plunder, which reminds one of Carlisle’s celebrated expression as to the cause of the French revolution — that the widow gathers three nettles for her family, and the seigneur takes one of the three and calls it ‘rent.’ ” When prices begin to fall people begin to sell and to horde the money. When prices are on the rise, people withdraw their hoarded money and invest it in property. Prices are now declining and money is being hoarded. The increase of the circulating medium would cause prices to rise. Then owners of money would be falling over each other to exchange their money for that which is rising in value. Every avenue of industry would be benefited. The volume of money can be increased by the remonetization of silver only. The free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 will abolish all banks of issue and therefore will result in the establishment of safe and sound government savings banks, in which every depositor will also be a depositor. Six million people voted for free silver in 1896. Six million people know the value to producers of a larger circulating medium. Keep the silver issue in the foreground.