Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1876 — Gold and silver Basis. [ARTICLE]

Gold and silver Basis.

Thk bullionists couple gold and silver together in theft phrase as to what they term basis. The basis is that upon which something else rests. This base should be level; but instead of level, we find this as much out of level as the heads of the advocates of the bullion theory. The gold side is one-fifth higher than the silver side. What kind of a superstructure in architecture would stand with one side tipped up one-fifth higher than the other. How long would a house stand with the foundation on one side continually sinking while the other was continually rising. The house would surely topple to its fall. The heads of the bullionists are as much out of plumb as the “ base” idea upon which they found their theory. Will these theorists still assert that gold and silver are steady? It would be better for them to reconstruct their set phrases by which they have heretofore falsely represented a thing as true which never was true. Gold and silver metals as metals never had a fixed value in market. They have always daily and hourly fluctuated in price. The grandfather of bullion writers, Adam Smith, never claimed that they were stationary in value; but upon the contrary states that they are commodities, being the products of 4abor. The - point he insisted upon was that they fluctuated in value the least of all commodi. ties, and as a consequence were the best commodities to use as the medium in exchanging other commodities. The prices of these metals in the market are sometimes higher and sometimes lower in like manner as all other commodities. This fact is and always has been so plain to all observers of ordinary capacity, that it is inexplicable upon any grounds that will maintain the honesty and integrity of these bullion gentlemen, if it is true that they have been favored by their Creator with even a moiety of the sense and ability they claim to possess.

Sometimes the market price of both goes down together; other times gold goes down and silver up, at others gold up and silver down. These variations occur in the same market. The prices of the same metal varies in opposite directions at the same time. While gold is declining in New York it will be rising in price in New Orleans, and viceterta. With these facts before the eyes of the very men that continually assert that gold and silver are steady and therefore the only proper basis for a paper circulating medium, what is to be said as to their honesty? It is a debasement of words to call u man honest who is continually asserting a falsehood with the knowledge, or the means of knowledge Unit his statement is false. Prof. Perry, of Williams college, in an address at Omaha, in the fall of 1874, told the people that the greenback had damaged them much worse than the grasshoppers, and then held up a silver dollar and then praised it as a steady dollar and gave as a reason why it was steady, that there had always been thirty-seven and onefourth grains of pure silver in every silver dollar that has been coined in the United States. What explanation eftn the Professor now give that wijl make his then false statement appear to harmonize with the truth. A silver dollar is now worth seventeen cents less in the markets of this country, than a gold dollar. There have continually been variations between these two metals. They are not a sale basis for paper for the reason they are continually varying, and for hundreds of other reasons, each one of which is sufficient. The scheme of having our currency powerless to perform the mission for which it professes to be created, except as it may be converted into another which has lawful power, is M cunninglydevised scheme to permit the bolder of the one to have advantage of the holder of the other. The precious metals are scarce, so limited in amount that they, if otherwise qualified, cannot form an honest basis for paper money. It b not honest to have five dollars of paper issued for one dollar of specie in possession. It is a scheme of robbery simply, for it is in its nature impossible to redeem the paper as promised, and such paper is not qualified to perform the functions ot money. It lacks the powers that are essential to those of legal tender and lawful money ; such currency is powerb i-s in and of itself to perform the functions of money; all that such specie-basis currency' could be lawfully' used for would be to obtain lawful money, and you stand four chances not to get it to one to get it where the basis is one to five. The whole specie basis scheme is only a scheme to give a species of credit to a paper circulation instituted in such a mode as to permit a few to draw a large interest upon it. Why not take the Government paper direct, which has perfect credit, cannot fail, is legal tender and always steady, and regulate its volume by cqnvertible bonds. —lndianapolis Sun.