Ratio And Parity

To the Editor: - There is a relation existing between the price of cereal grains determined by the natural causes of supply and demand in which the relative labor i cost of production forms a 1 trolling factor. This is a natural ratio. Though not established by law it is none the less binding upon trade. Should the chief bread eating peoples, however, resolve to use only one of these grains for bread, common sense tells us that this natural ratio would be speedily destroyed and that the price of the favored grains would rise far above its normal point. Common sense also tells us that the natural order of things could not be restored so long as this restriction continued. The analogy between these grains and the present status of gold and silver is complete. Our statesmen in political platform and presidential message teil us that the parity raust be maintained, but they fail to remove the restrictions which prevent that parity being reali.ed. It was the restrictive legislation of 1873 that disturbed the parity between gold and silver. Remove restrictive legislation and give the peopl-.ï their choice of money metáis and the parity will take one of itself. From 1687 until 1873 tne ratio between gold and silver did not go below 14.14 nor above 16.25 to 1. It was 15.63 to 1 the year of its demonitization in this country. Since that time there have been no natural causes tending to raise that ratio. The relative labor cost of production has varied little. The annual increase has been very nearly measured by the 16 to 1 ratio. Since 1850 the respective stocks of the metáis have declined from thirty tons of silver to one ton of gold, to 18 tons of silver to one ton of gold. The occurrence in nature, the means of production and the field of possible supply are in favor of a ratio ranging between 15 and 16 to 1, if left to natural laws. The present divergence from the old relations must be charged to the enforced demand for gold. It is an appreciation of that metal due to artificial, not natural causes. It need cause no alarm about the arrangement of American finance on a bimetallic basis.