372 THE QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 



maneiit welfare of nations, and will not seek to relieve one 

 generation which is suffering from the reaction from an infla- 

 tion of values of property, by plunging it into a new era of 

 speculation in inflated money, certain in time to react upon 

 another generation, causing the people distress like that wlncli 

 we have endured. Statesmanship is just not only as between 

 individuals, but between generations. 



As between gold and silver it is the fact that gold has long 

 been used in large transactions in commercial nations, to tlie 

 exclusion of silver, by reason of its greater convenience and 

 smaller cost of transportation and storage; and as transactions 

 constantly tend to grow larger, the increasing demand for gold, 

 without corresponding reduction in cost of production, has 

 kept its value steady with respect to commodities at their 

 decreasing cost, while silver has depreciated by reason of new 

 discoveries and great economies of production, without corre- 

 sponding increase of demand either for money or in the arts. 

 The facts show that silver production continues, even at its 

 present low prices; geology teaches us that the supplies of 

 silver in the earth are practically inexhaustible, and it is plain 

 that any increase of price would at once cause the working of 

 the best of the enormous deposits of low-grade ore whose loca- 

 tions are known, but which can not now be profitably worked, 

 and that if by remonetization or any otlier means the pur- 

 chasing power of silver could, for the time, be doubled, as 

 is imagined, silver mining under modern processes would 

 become the most profitable industry knov^ai, and the world 

 would be inundated with such a flood of it that the power of 

 all the governments of the earth would be wholly insufficient 

 to maintain any ratio between silver and gold materially 

 different from that of the relative co.st of the production of 

 the two metals. The depreciation of silver is therefore the 

 inevitable result of economic forces of irresistible power, and 

 correctly represents the value of that metal as compared with 

 gold. Dealings upon the gold basis are therefore just, and 

 dealings upon any other basis are unjust, and the consequences 

 of any attempt to enforce such dealings will inevitably fall on 

 the least informed and least organized, nmong whom are car-- 



