ounce, less the cost of carriage to the United States Mint, and less a fair profit for the risk that the United States might see its own folly and stop buying silver before delivery could be made. The world's dealers in bullion know the amount of gold in the Treasury of the United . States and know that European governments are anxious to obtain gold and to get rid of silver. The problem for the bullion dealers would be: How long can or will the United States take silver and pay out gold? The questions in the United States would be: How quickly can we stop taking the world's silver and giving the world our gold, and what adequate punishment can be inflicted upon Senator Stewart and his friends? And, reading of the Senator's being hanged in effigy all over the United States by patriotic small boys, the world's bullion dealers would hurry on their silver and would reduce their purchases of it. The market price of silver, therefore, would never quite reach the Treasury price of $1.29 per ounce.

All this is clear to Mr. H

and so

he wants us to buy American silver only, still at $1.29 per ounce, although American silver is worth no more in the world's markets than any other silver. If this idea should prevail, the question with American miners would be: How much can we increase our production and how much silver can we deliver at the Mint before the gov. ernment shall see the need to stop buying?

I may be pardoned for saying just here that it was hardly necessary for Mr. H to state that he is engaged in silver-mining. And I would ask if he would guarantee that Mexican silver shall not be carried to American mines and thence to the United States Mint? Does he propose that Treasury officials shall keep watch over every hole in American ground to prevent it being stocked with Mexican silver and then developed into an American silver mine?

Will he furnish to the Treasury, experts who are capable of telling the difference between American and foreign silver? Is there a distinguishable difference?

If, to stop importations, Mr. H— would tax importations of silver, how would he avoid taxing such silver as had been previously exported, and, would not his law violate the constitution which prohibits the taxing of any article exported from any State? Importers of silver, in order to avoid the paying of duty upon it, would claim that their particular lots of silver were American silver and therefore exempt from taxation.

Surely common sense has a place in this discussion, and the silver men should be willing to allow the United States to buy as cheaply as possible, for in this way the United States can buy about one third more in quantity,' to say nothing of the fact that this way would be more fair to all taxpayers who must pay for the purchases. It has been shown by years of trying to make silver circulate, that Americans will not carry much silver in their pockets and cannot be induced to do so; and it can be assumed that the silver which the government takes, it will be obliged to pile up on top of its already enor

1 1896. Nearly twice the quantity.

mous stock, and will be obliged to hold until such time as it sees fit to sell to the world and at the world's price. The higher the price, too, which the govern ment pays for silver, the greater will be the stimulation to silver-mining all over the world, unless the government should quickly obtain all it could pay for, or quickly abandon its position of buyer.

Free coinage, or what is the same thing, the paying of $1.2929 an ounce for a metal worth less than $1, would make us the world's laughing-stock, and European governments would vie with each other in the struggle to get our gold before we should be able to comprehend the point of the joke.

Somewhat farther away from lunacy is the present law,' by the operation of which the United States was changed from a silver exporting to a silver-importing or nonexporting country. Even paying only the market price the Treasury has shown itself to be the world's best buyer of silver, and according to the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, 1890, the natural flow of silver

1 Repealed in 1893.

from the American mines to Oriental countries had been stopped. The Orientals who use silver for money, and exclusively, can get along with a diminished supply to accommodate the vaults of the United States Treasury, and is it to be supposed that the Orient can spare none of its stock if we offer to pay an advance of thirty per cent.? But the Orient does not want gold money and Europe does, and the question is, How much silver could Europe and the Orient and the rest of the world spare to fill our Treasury vaults?

If I understand Mr. Wm. P. St. John (New York Evening Telegram, August 15, 1891), he relies upon the fact that the European coinage parity of silver to gold is 15 to 1, whereas our coinage parity is 16 to 1, this difference making silver money abroad worth, nominally, about $1.33 per ounce, while here it is worth, nominally, $1.2929 per ounce. Mr. St. John argues that the silver money of Europe would not come here, under free coinage in this country, because we should then be offering to pay only $1.2929 per ounce