not stop with the robbery of the debtor. Its baneful effects will not cease until silver is remonetized, or until the use of both gold and silver is abandoned.

The amount of gold coin in the commercial world has not materially increased since 1873, when silver was demonetized. Many statisticians contend that the entire output of gold since that time has been employed for non-monetary purposes. However that may be, population, business, and credit have increased out of all proportion to the supply of gold. The general range of prices of commodities has declined about 40 per cent., business is languishing, and prudent men are in constant dread of an impending crisis. Every movement of gold is viewed with. alarm. The scanty reserves of gold coin in the money centers of Europe and America are a constant menace to financial credit and business. The monometallists cannot deny that the money of redemption is inadequate to sustain the existing fabric of credit. They suggest no remedy to supply the deficiency, except more contraction and less enterprise; more poverty and less prosperity. The people will apply a remedy. They have not abandoned hope. They have no fetish worship for gold, but they are conservative. They will adhere to the metallic basis so long as the mines furnish a sufficient supply of the precious metals and so long as both metals are used.

Previous to the conspiracy by which the gold trust of the United States and Europe was formed, each nation furnished its people with the kind and quantity of money which was deemed best suited to their wants. Some used gold, others silver, and others both gold and silver. England used gold alone as money; Germany, Austria, Holland, and India and other Asiatic countries adhered to silver; while the Latin Union and the United States used both gold and silver. So long as this freedom of action in furnishing the people with money was enjoyed by the nations of the earth, a parity existed between gold and silver at the ratio of about 15 of silver to one of gold. No one in any part of the world would sell either gold or silver for a less price than could be obtained in the countries using both metals. So long as a given quantity of silver could be exchanged for the same amount of money as another given quantity of gold, such given

quantities were always equal in value. Money was the standard, and it made no difference of which metal it was composed. The parity of value between the two metals was not affected by the demonetization of silver in England in 1816, nor by the demonetization of gold in Germany and Austria in 1857. It required a combination of all the leading commercial nations to break the metallic tie and to advance the value of gold. The United States took the lead in the gold combination without the consent of the people. That combination or trust has inflicted pecuniary loss upon the country beyond computation, and has substituted poverty and want for abundance and prosperity.

When the Barings, by speculation in South America, incurred gold obligations heavier than they could bear, and thereby failed, the financial credit of the commercial world was shaken to its foundation. The people of the United States were not parties to the South American speculation which caused the failure, but they were partners with their English cousins in maintaining the gold trust, and suffered for the extravagance of their gold associates. What advantage has been gained by this gold combination? Why should it be continued? And above all, why should another combination be formed for the pretended purpose of unifying the currency of the commercial world? Why should the United States use the same kind of money as other countries? What possible good can result from such an arrangement? The pretense that gold coin is required to settle foreign balances is absurd. Such balances are adjusted by a well-established system of exchange. Bankers who deal in exchange furnish all necessary facilities for conducting foreign

commerce.

The value of money in any country is determined by its purchasing power in that country. Its power in exchange at home is all the value it possesses. When transported, whether it be gold, silver, or paper, it becomes a commodity. The banker, knowing the purchasing power of the money of every country, readily reduces the money of one country to that of another, and furnishes business men with the money they require in any foreign country. A currency that would circulate throughout the world must be made a legal tender by every nation. No inde.

pendent legislation, by different nations, on the money question could be tolerated. Such an arrangement would be impossible and undesirable. A stringency in one country would affect every other. Those who advocate it seem to suppose that the exchange of the money of one country for that of another is commerce. They do not seem to realize that commerce consists in the interchange of commodities, and that money is used as a measure or counter for that purpose. Money should never be exported. The country which exports its money will bankrupt its people. Internal commerce and business depend upon the volume of money at home. The loss of the circulating medium by export is ruinous. An international agreement providing for a common currency for export would be disastrous.

The country whose money is of such material as cannot be converted into money of any other country is protected from the loss of its circulating medium by export. Why should not each country enjoy such protection? Why should any country buy foreign commodities worth more than those of its own production that it can give in exchange? It is better to let foreign creditors wait or refuse credit than to produce contraction at home by exporting money. Exchange accommodates foreign commerce, but domestic commerce is dependent upon the supply of money at home. tercanti

The people of the United States must have more money. More gold cannot be obtained. Why not use silver as well as gold? Silver and gold are limited in production. Silver will not furnish too much money. Fiat paper, the alternative of silver, might do so. The estimated annual product of the silver of the world is about 130,000,000 ounces. Some deduction ought to be made from this estimate on account of the exaggeration of speculators in mines. But whatever the yield may be, it was all absorbed prior to 1890, when the price of silver advanced by reason of discussion and legislation in Congress. The sudden rise in price checked exports from Asia. Three bushels of wheat were exchanged in India for the same amount of silver that two bushels would procure previous to the advance. All other exports were similarly affected. The Asiatics ceased purchasing silver. The increased purchases in the United States

under the act of July 14, 1890, did not equal the amount formerly exported to Asia. For the first time in history there was, in the United States, a small accumulation of silver bullion for which there were no buyers. This surplus bullion has depressed the price of silver from $1.21 to about 98 cents per ounce. The power of Great Britain over the Asiatic market was exerted to prevent the purchase of silver. In India paper was substituted for coin by English monometallists. It was necessary to depreciate and degrade silver that free-coinage legislation in the United States might be obstructed. If Congress had adopted free coinage instead of requiring the purchase of four and one half million ounces per month, more silver would have been absorbed by Asia, because the motive for depreciating silver to affect our legislation would not have existed. Certainly free coinage could not have more effectually cut off the Asiatic market for silver than did the act of 1890.

The addition to our circulating medium up to the present time which free coinage would have caused could not have exceeded fifteen million dollars. Such an addition would have been a great boon in the present stringency of the money market. The prediction that European coin would be sent here if our mints were opened to free coinage of silver is idle. Europe needs all her silver coin. It is all held in reserve for redemption of her paper or is in circulation among the people. It is the people's money, which cannot be withdrawn without great inconvenience. It is circulating on a par with gold at a ratio of 15 to one. This is a valuation higher by more than three per cent. than that placed on the silver in the standard dollar. There is no silver coin in the world which is not valued higher than our own, except the Mexican dollar, which contains a little more silver than there is in the standard dollar of the United States. The only cheap silver in the world is the small accumulation of silver bullion now on the market. That accumulation not only depresses the price of silver, but weighs down the price of all commodities.

Since silver was demonetized the price of wheat and the prices of all other farm products which we export have been governed by the price of silver. The reason for this is that India and all

our competitors for the supply of the European markets adhere to the silver standard. The purchasing power of silver in those countries remains stationary. There is no discount at home on the silver that they receive in return for their wheat and cotton; while the farmers and planters of the United States, who sell in the same market and for the same price, are compelled to suffer a loss of more than 30 per cent. The advantage that England secures by the use of cheap silver to exchange for wheat and cotton in India was urged, before the English royal commission, against the remonetization of silver. The argument was that this advantage releases England from paying tribute to the United States for farm products, while it develops the resources of India. It is a curious fact that the average price of wheat for the last twenty-five years has been equal to the value of 3711 grains of pure silver, the amount contained in the standard dollar. This was the case when silver fell to 89 cents an ounce, and also when it rose last year to $1.21.

Free coinage would make the silver bullion in the standard dollar worth $1.29 an ounce, and would enhance the value of farm products in an equal proportion. It would also enlarge the metallic basis and place the fabric of credit, which is now tottering, on a solid foundation. It would stop contraction, furnish more money, revive business, and secure prosperity. The only persons in the world interested in preventing free coinage are the owners of gold and of gold obligations, a class of persons who are willing to sacrifice the happiness of mankind to increase their own accumulations. They are governed by the instinct of the miser, and have the self-righteousness of the Pharisee of old in the temple at Jerusalem. Their power of deception seems inexhaustible, and it has been used with marvelous effect. By their arts thousands of millions of wealth, produced by honest toil, have been transferred from the masses to the designing few. They have interested the people in side issues and excited them over sentimental questions; and, like the cuttle-fish, have darkened the waters in order to conceal their schemes of robbery.

At last the people are investigating the subject. Contraction and hard times have aroused them. They demand more money. They demand that the gold trust or partnership, which was