Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1896 — SILVER AND COMMERCE. [ARTICLE]

SILVER AND COMMERCE.

How Free Coin ago Would Incommode Our Foreign Trade. One of the lirst nud most disastrous effects of a change Of the standard of value in this country from gold to silver would he the dislocation of our foreign trade. Every merchant understands, though it is probable that thousands of his fellow, citizens do not. that all trade .done between nations that are on a gold standard basis is subject to an enormous line in the shape of losses incurred by reason of the fluctuations in the rate of exchange. Merchants understand, and they should now take the trouble to explain it to others, that a cargo of wheat or cotton shipped lrom New York to Liverpool for sale in the latter market will he sold and paid for there at prices reckoned and stated in gold. No act of Congress making silver the standard of value, or pretending to give it equality as such with gold at 16 to 1, or sit any other arbitrary ratio, will have any effect at. all in Liverpool or London. They buy and sell in those cities in terms of gold: not by the coined gold sovereign of England, but by tho pound sterling of gold which moans a found in weight and not in coin. And that is something that American law cannot touch. Wo can change our own standard if we choose, and make it different to that of Croat Britain, France, Cermany and the other principal commercial countries of the world, but wo cannot make them change theirs. hat then would happen in shipping ■cargoes of American merchandise to any European markets if this country adopts a silver basis? It is dear that their silvcr<price on this side would be constantly nftected, and harmfully on the whole, by the fluctuations, and downwards, of tho gold price of silver itself in London, Paris and Berlin. This would introduce an element of endless confusion into our foreign trade both ways, and compel merchants on both sides to be continually specula ling on the probable rise or fall of silver between the . sailing. of a ship from one side of the Atlantic and the unloading of her cargo on the other. Our foreign trade would thus he subject to flic risks of gambling. .Every consignment of goods sent from our jiorts to thuse of gold stafMttrd countries, and vice versa, would have to bo made largely on chances. Neither the shimx-rs nor the consignees would he willing to take these* chances, except with tho expectation and assurance that their profits would be proportionately larger for the extra risk they ran.-Shin-ping and Commercial List.