210 



CONGRESS. (SILVER PURCHASE.) 



shall the total amount of such notes issued to any 

 such association exceed the amount at such time 

 actually paid in of its capital stock. 



On Feb. 6, Senator Hill, of New York, called 

 up this measure for action, and in support of it he 

 delivered a carefully prepared argument. Among 

 other things he said : 



" Gold is not purchased by the Government. 

 It has free coinage into full legal-tender money 

 for the people who bring it, and no matter how 

 much. If melted, it has free recoinage into the 

 same amount of full legal-tender money again, 

 without loss. 



"Those great populations which now as ever 

 maintain the free coinage of silver, do not pur- 

 chase silver in our fashion, by government. It 

 is coined for the people, whoever brings it and 

 no matter how much, just as gold-coining nations 

 deal with gold. If the silver is melted for other 

 uses, it loses nothing of its value, for it is as- 

 sured of recoinage into the same amount of full 

 legal tender money again without loss. 



' Is it not clear, then, that our silver purchases 

 are the polar opposite of free silver coinage ? 

 But they are worse than opposite ; they are ef- 

 fective contraries to free bimetallic coinage 

 whatever their amount and whether minted or 

 not. 



"If minted, as by the Bland- Allison law, 

 they make a local accumulation of nonexport- 

 able money. 



" If they are not minted, but measure Treas- 

 ury note issues, as by the Sherman law, they 

 likewise make an accumulation of nonexport- 

 able money. Too great accumulation of such 

 money must surely extrude gold, which is now 

 our only exportable money. 



"Silver purchased, even if coined, monetizes 

 no unpurchased silver, and if not coined mon- 

 etizes none at all. 



"Free coinage of silver is not the purchase of 

 an ounce of silver. Nor is free coinage of gold 

 the purchase of any gold. The function of free 

 coinage is to effect the monetization of all, but 

 not by the purchase of any. 



" Now, there is about the same aggregate of 

 gold money as of silver money in existence. 

 The free coinage of silver has never ceased, and 

 will not cease, so far as human beings can now 

 foresee. The free coinage of gold has never 

 ceased, and will not cease. 



" Nations may shift and change. This mint 

 may be closed to gold, as the mints of India 

 once, or that mint may be closed to silver, as 

 the mint of Germany was. 



" But what ceased on the earth in 1873 was 

 not free gold coinage, was not free silver coin- 

 age. 



" What ceased in 1873 was free bimetallic 

 coinage, to wit, the free coinage of silver and the 

 free coinage of gold at the same mint in a rated 

 parity. 



" The two free coinages, elsewhere going on sep- 

 arately, lost their virtual conjunction due to the 

 two free coinages which till then had gone on 

 actually conjoined in one mint and one law. 



" Lost thereby was the parity of gold and sil- 

 ver. 



" A specified weight of gold, having free coin- 

 age into one monetary unit, no longer retained 

 its former stable equivalence with 15| times its 



weight of silver having free coinage elsewhere 

 into another national monetary unit. 



" If the monetary unit had been bimetallic', 

 thereafter the parity of the franc in silver and 

 the franc in gold, the parity of the silver dollar 

 and the gold dollar was but a local parity, lost 

 in the crucible. 



" Silver purchases have not so much as even a 

 tendency to lay the foundations of universal 

 parity between the silver dollar and the gold 

 dollar; for their renewed parity is impossible 

 except, as before, concurrently with the parity 

 of all gold and all silver, which parity not only 

 depends upon the monetization of each by the 

 offer of free coinage to each, which has al- 

 ways gone on somewhere, but also upon the 

 rated parity of both by the free coinage of both 

 at a fixed weight ratio, to wit, upon free bime- 

 tallic coinage which ceased in 1873. 



" What earthly relation has the purchase of 

 silver to its parity with gold I 



" What earthly relation has the purchase of 

 gold to its parity with silver! 



" The two halves of the money of the world, 

 the gold half and the silver half, together con- 

 stitute the great money measure of mankind 

 (though now for nineteen years dislocated by 

 the novel absence of free bimetallic coinage) 

 the one great bimetallic money measure standing 

 over against the total inventory of their wealth. 



" So that if all silver were put out of existence 

 and the gold doubled, the money measure would 

 be the same, the convenience of it vastly less. 

 Subdivisional small payments would everywhere 

 require paper certificates. But free coinage of 

 all gold would constitute the whole of the yel- 

 low money metal the perfect money measure for 

 mankind. All might not be brought for coin- 

 age. All could be. All would be taken out of 

 the category of commodities and raised to the 

 uniform level of the monetization. 



" Now, what could gold purchases do, gold 

 being the sole money metal, except transfer 

 ownership? 



" So if all gold were put out of existence and 

 the silver doubled, again the money measure 

 would be the same and the convenience less. 

 But free coinage of all silver would constitute 

 the whole of that white metal the still perfect 

 money measure of mankind. All would never 

 be brought for coinage. All could be. Enough 

 would be brought for all payments to be made, 

 and standard bullion would be as precious as 

 the same weight of coin, for all would be taken 

 out of the category of commodities and raised 

 to the uniform level of monetization. 



" What now could silver purchases do, silver 

 being the sole money metal, except transfer 

 ownership ? 



"Instead of $8,000.000.000 of gold with no 

 silver, and instead of $8,000,000.000 of silver 

 with no gold, mankind has a better, a bimetallic 

 money ; in round numbers, say $4,000,000,000 of 

 silver and $4,000,000,000 of gold a bimetallic 

 money, although for the moment lacking their 

 ancient legal correlation. 



" What now is it conceivable that gold pur- 

 chases or silver purchases can do, by transfer of 

 ownership, more than in the monometallic cases 

 I have imagined, when the money of mankind 

 is bimetallic 1 



