"pound of flesh nearest the heart." Let us have some fair discussion, instead of special pleading by the interested organ; and for the good of common humanity, let us honestly seek an honest remedy.

CHAPTER XV.

CERNUSCHI ON THE ISSUE.

Henri Cernuschi was the famous French writer who won fame as a champion of international bimetallism and an opponent of independent bimetallism by any single nation. He has been frequently quoted by advocates of the gold standard in this country in their endeavor to combat the arguments of the advocates of "16 to 1." The following is one of the last of Cernuschi's contributions: From the Paris Economiste.

"I have always combated the uncompromising silver men of America, who at bottom are really silver monometallists, because from the scientific point of view, their doctrine is as fallacious as that of the gold monometallists.

"The adoption of the free coinage of silver by the United States alone would, it is true, increase to a formidable extent the contingent of silver monometallic countries, but would not immediately bring about a true solution of the problem that international bimetallism has in view-namely, the instantaneous fusion of the two monetary standards in a single international money by the establishment of a fixed parity of value between gold and silver.

"With silver monometallism in the United States, the war to the knife between gold and silver will agitate yet for many years the civilized world, and you know as well as I do that the results of this struggle will be disastrous to those European countries which are at present living under a single gold standard, and in particular to England and France.

"I have always been the adversary of the outand-out silver men of America, that is to say, the party which demands the free coinage of the silver dollar in the United States without reference to the action of European nations, because their monetary conception is diametrically opposed to mine. They are monometallists, like the monometallists of the city of London, and the triumph of their cause, so far from putting an end to the monetary anarchy in which the world has been writhing since 1873, will merely accentuate it, in rendering more burdensome for Europe the economic consequences of the diverge.

"But if I were a citizen of the United States and were convinced that Europe, by reason of England's attitude, is fixedly hostile to the establishment of a stable monetary parity between gold and silver, obstinately rejecting all ideas of international bimetallic agreement, then I should cease to be an international bimetallist (which nearly all my friends in the United States are), and should go over unhesitatingly to the camp of the silver men.

"As a matter of fact, in its present economic situation, the United States of America, that great and youthful nation, suffers much more from the merciless conflict that has been in progress between gold and silver since 1873 than England-a very wealthy country, creditor of the rest of the world, possessing resources of every kind and enormous financial reserves, which enable her to endure with comparative ease the economic competition of those nations whose monetary standard is depreciated in regard to gold, like the countries of the far east, Mexico, the Argentine Republic, etc.

"The United States of America, on the contrary, are debtors to Europe for a portion of the sums which they have employed in the development of their industrial system, and must necessarily liquidate their debts abroad by realizing upon the products of their soil and of their manufactures.

Now, as their foreign debts are, on the one hand, contracted in gold, and as, on the other, American products in Europe have to reckon with the depressing competition of similar products exported by other countries having a silver standard or paper money, it follows that the appreciation of gold, in regard to silver, that has taken place since 1873, has had a twofold result for the United States-which have remained faithful to the single gold standard since that date-namely: First-it has diminished by

half, on American territory, the value in gold of all the national products which are subject to the said competition; and, second, it has doubled the real burden of the debts contracted abroad in gold, since double the quantity of American products is now required to discharge the annual liabilities arising from those debts.

"The native products of England have evidently felt the depressing influence of the same competition with similar products from countries whose monetary standard has been depreciated in regard to gold, and in this respect English agriculturists and manufacturers are prejudicially affected in the same way as the agriculturists and manufacturers of the United States. For this reason, an understanding between the two countries looking to the re-establishment of the equilibrium between the two monetary standards, and the maintenance of a stable parity of exchange for the future, was logical, reasonable and desirable for the world at large.

"But, if the interests of English agriculturists and manufacturers are seriously affected by the competition of countries having a depreciated monetary standard, the exterior finances of the United Kingdom do not suffer thereby, since England has no debts contracted abroad, and, in this respect at least, the English escape that particular evil from which the finances of the United States of America suffer so cruelly.