148 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



ficnlty of getting it, and cheapen commodities 

 to buy it. We feel this most sensibly now. 

 'We strike down silver, and in doing so increase 

 the value of gold. We must have gold and we 

 bankrupt our people to buy it with their com- 

 modities. 



" Seyd gives in 1876 the figures thus. Leaving 

 out of view paper entirely, there are now in 

 the world full legal-tender money : 



In gold coin and bank bullion $3,750,000,000 



In legal-tender silver in Europe and elsewhere 1,215,000,000 

 In legal-tender silver in the Last 1,250,000,000 



Total of legal-tender metallic money $6,275,000,000 



Now if the legal-tender silver be demonetized, 

 say 2,525,000,000 



The whole legal-tender money of the world is $3,750,000,000 



"In these figures we may see the great stake 

 that capital plays for. It is dealing with eco- 

 nomic questions over a vast field, and the propo- 

 sition needs to be thoroughly grasped to see 

 its enormity. 



" I do not assert this upon my own statement, 

 but I quote from an Indian writer, the officer 

 of a bank in Bengal, Mr. Hector, writing in 

 1877, upon this subject. Let us see what he 

 says : 



If the United States and France should decide 

 upon a single standard of gold, then silver would, 

 depreciate so much as to render it unfit to remain 

 the measure of values in India. More, in my esti- 

 mation, depends on the action of those two countries 

 than on anything else. If they elect to have gold, 

 we must have gold too, let the cost be what it may. 

 Whichever country takes the initiative, the others 

 must follow, and the three would be competing for 

 gold together. 



1 have not much faith in the unselfishness of na- 

 tions any more than in that of individuals. Each 

 country will be guided by what it considers to be 

 for its own advantage, without much regard for the 

 consequences to its neighbors ; but here, what is for 

 the common good is likewise for the good of each 

 one concerned. 



That the governments of India, France, and Amer- 

 ica should agree upon a common course of action is 

 highly desirable in the interests of each. If nations 

 were influenced by considerations extending beyond 

 their own immediate interests, I might go further 

 and say that the world at large would lose by the 

 general demonetization of silver, and that, with the 

 object of averting such a calamity, the agreement 

 for concerted action might be so extended as to em- 

 brace all the nations of Europe, or at any rate all 

 those which have not a single gold standard. 



" So both China and India, with their large 

 and exclusively silver circulation, are driven 

 to follow the programme of gold alone. If we 

 diminish the legal-tender money of the world 

 by two fifths, we add to the value of the re- 

 mainder by fully the same proportion. Reduce 

 the measure of value by two fifths, and you 

 add to the value of all money indebtedness an 

 equal amount, or, what is the same thing, you 

 enable it to buy tbat proportion more of prop- 

 erty or labor. Such a reduction will stop all 

 public improvements, deprive labor of employ- 

 ment, cause its value to decline, and wages, 

 production, and consumption will all become 

 less. The addition to the stock of precious 

 metals, resulting from the gold discoveries in 



California and Australia and -the silver in Ne- 

 vada since 1848, lias been the leading cause of 

 the great stride in industrial development and 

 progress made by the world in the last thirty 

 years ; and the disuse of as much as has been 

 added logically and necessarily turns us back. 

 Are not the owners of capital taking a fearful 

 risk in the adoption of this policy? In such 

 an enormous reduction of money as will follow 

 from its success all prices must fall largely. 

 Can mortgages be paid ? Can capital save 

 itself ? Public debts will become fourfold more 

 onerous. Taxes will be lessened upon prop- 

 erty because its value falls, and in the conse- 

 quent distress and confusion public faith may 

 suffer. 



" If silver be demonetized as lawful money, 

 can you use it at all as subsidiary coin ? Here 

 I meet the question of my friend from Georgia 

 (Mr. Hill). It is not, like our fractional notes, 

 a promise to pay. It is payment. The legal- 

 tender quality you give it will span a moderate 

 gap, and the people will accept it for the sake 

 of convenience at its face value. But if silver 

 falls to one half the value of gold, will the sub- 

 sidiary coins pass at their face even as tokens ? 

 If it were redeemable by the Government or 

 exchangeable at the mints for gold, it could 

 sustain itself; but that cannot be for many 

 reasons if it does so fall, and as a consequence 

 of relegating silver to the arts, as a result of 

 its demonetization, you will compel your own 

 people to reject it in the form of subsidiary 

 coin. They will not accept a coin as payment 

 that is so debased as to be worth but one half of 

 what it professes to be by law. The argument 

 used by Senators that silver subsidiary coin is 

 cheapened and may be used to defraud labor, is 

 intensified when you consider with how much 

 more force it applies to an appreciated gold 

 dollar than it does to a silver dollar ; for if it 

 takes two hundred and sixteen silver half dol- 

 lars to buy $100 in legal-tender silver dollars, 

 it requires two hundred and thirty-eight silver 

 half dollars to buy one hundred gold dollars. 

 The gap widens between them very rapidly if 

 you totally reject silver as full legal tender. 

 The result of such a system inevitably is that 

 the wages of labor are paid in debased money 

 while the profits of cnpital are paid in real 

 money. This is one of the worst results of an 

 exclusive gold standard. It serves to demon- 

 strate the necessity, in justice to all classes, for 

 full-valued metallic money, upon an equal basis 

 between the metals. Sir, the people whom I 

 represent want no system of coinage in which 

 it takes fifteen ten-cent pieces to make a dollar. 



" What is the remedy ? Silver and gold, as 

 mutual aids to each other, open the door to 

 resumption. We have another metal to aid 

 gold. It is constitutional and lawful money. 

 It is coin within both the word and the spirit 

 of our laws. It is our own product. Its use 

 increases the quantity of the medium of ex- 

 change. It is more easily accumulated than 

 gold. It is desired by and is acceptable to the 



