Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1894 — “PURELY SELFISH.” [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

“PURELY SELFISH.”

ENGLAND’S REASONS FOR HER ATTITUDE ON SILVER. A London Financial Paper Scores’the British Gold Rrgs—America Can Coerce John Bull to A4p#t a SMver Policy.

[The London Financial News.] There have not been wanting of late indications of growing irritation with England for its dog-in the manger silver policy. Gold monometalism is convulsing two continents and gravely compromising the future of the poorer states in Europe. This feeling has bee nvoicedinAiherlo&~ibr-Senator Lodge, whose proposal virtually to shut out British goods from the United States until we should assent to a bimetallic convention, though extreme and absurd, indicates the trend of sentiment on the other side of the Atlantic.

Senator Lodge is not a silver man in the usual sense, being opposed out and jtjut to free coinage in the United States under existing conditions, and therefore his views, though tinged with-strong fceling, may attract more attention here than those of the pronounced silverites. Mr. Lodge is very bitter about the failure of the Brussels conference of last year, where the attitude of the British official delegates was “scarcely less than discourteous” to the United States, and he believes that nine-tenths of the American people regard it in that light _ A feeling of this kind is not to be lightly ignored. We have frequent diplomatic differences with the United States, but as a rule there is seldom „ associated with these any sense of animus between the people of the two countries. But now we are encouraging the growth of a feeling that on a question which affects the prosperity of millions of individual Americans England is inclined to entertain views unfriendly to the United States We know, of course, that the unfriendliness is accidental, and that our monetary policy is controlled by purely selfish notions that we do not mind seeing India suffering from our action much more than America does. The- Americans

are sufficiently old fashioned to believe that it is the part of a friend to show himself friendly, and when this country turns a deaf ear to the plaint of half the world, including- all 'the New World, they not unnaturally take it unkindly. It is not for us to say whether the feeling of irration is wholly justified "br not; it exists, and that is the main point. Moreover, it is taking- a shape that may entail very awk ward consequenees on us. The recent proposal to coin Mexican dollars in San Eranciseo was a bid toward giving us an object lesson by ousting us from*our commanding position in eastern trade. There is a plain riioral in the remark that if the United States would venture to cut herself adrift from Europe and take outright to silver she woyld have all America and Asia at her markes» ?f both continents. “The barrfei- es gold would be more fatal than any barrier of a custom house. The bond of silver would be stronger than any bond of free trade.”

There can be no doubt about it that if the United States were to adopt a silver basis to-morrow British trade would be ruined before the year was out Every American industry would be protected, not only at home, but in every other market. Of course the states would suffer to a certain extent through having to pay her obligations abroad in gold; but the loss on exchange under this head would be a mere drop in the bucket compared with the profits to be reaped from the markets of South America and to say nothing of Europe. The marvel is that the United States has not long ago seized the opportunity, and but for the belief that the way of England is necessarily the way to commercial success and prosperity, undoubtedly it would have been done long ago. Now Americans are awakening to the fact that "so long as tjiey narrow their ambition to a larger England” they can not beat us. It has been a piece of luck for us that it has never before occurred to the Americans to scoop us out of the world’s markets by gding on a silver basis, and it might serve us right if, irritated by the .contemptuous apathy of our government to the gravity df Hie silver problem, the A wsWewiW Retaliate by freezing out geld. ft could easily be done.

PLEDGED TO FREE TRADE.