The Future Of Silver

Now that the struggle is over, and it has been settled that for the next two years and more the opponents of the silver standard will be in control of both the legislative and the exeeutive branches of the natiomil goverument, the question suggests itself whether at the expiratiou of that period, fresh efforts will be needed to maintain the position that has been won, or whether the silver craze will, in the ïneanwhile, have subsided so that no further glit will be made in its behalf. The leading silverites in this country unanimously declare that, though beaten, they are not dismayed. Mr. Bryan says that "the gold standard is a conspiracy cf the money changers against the human race," and, therefore, he will continue the warfare against it, and Gov. Altgeld claims that "one more campaign of education will forever bury the palsied form of that curse which has blighted the happiness and the prosperity of mankind." In the same spirit the British bi-metallic league hails the electiou of the Republican candidate as an assurance that the promise of his party to do all in its power to promote an international agreement for the free coinage of silver will now be performed. In view of these expressions of opinión and of the slender majorities by which in many states free silver was defeated. it inay well be doubted whether the end of the controversy has been reached. With 6,000,000 of the voters of the country taking one side and only 7,000,000 taking the other, a great deal more education is plainly needed to secure for the establishment of the gold standard the general consent which is indispensable to its pennanencv. This ueeded education will not be the work of speeches and essays alone. Somethiug more directly appealing to people's self-interest is necessary to iufluKuce their actïon. This country vrould uever have declared its independeiice of Great Britain on purely theoretical and sentiiuental fíraunds. Tlie tea tax and the stamp tax brought home to the patriotic sense the mischiefof colonial subjectiou much more impreasively than did the orations of politica! leaders. Great Britain did not repeal her oppressive corn laws frotu mere consideration for the consumere of bread. The repeal was secured by the clamors of the hungry mumtude and by fears of a popular uplising. All the labors of the Abolitionists faileil to suppress slavery in the southern states, and it was not until those states arose in armed rebelliou that their slaves were freed as a war measure. So, to, as long as the gold standard is defended by abstract reasoning only, it will fail to commend itself to the millions who are alive to the injuries which they think it causes them. They must be made to feel its benefits by actual experience before they will abondon their opposition to it, and until this is accomplished we shall never be secured against the recurrence of just such contests as that from which we have now emerged. Oposition to the gold standard rests ohiefly upon the assumption that it has not only measured the fall in prices of agricultural products, of which so much complaint is made, but that it has been the agency which has produced it. In vain is it pointed out that this f all occurred, for the most part, more then 10 years ago, and that during the last ten years it has been inconsinerable ; in vain, too, is attention called to the actual rise in many articles of the same class as those which have fallen, and, above all, to the universal rise of the wages of labor in every country where the gold standard prevails ; the assertion is obstinate ly repeated that the gold standard is the cause of low prices, and that, therefore, silver ought to be substituted for it. It is true that prices would be higher if they were measured in silver than they are while measured in gold, but the prices that prevailed before the present level was reached, although in some it would lift them higher. This consideration bas little weight with men who have debts to pay, and who would pay them more easily if they could sell the products of their labor at silver prices instead of gold prices. Even to those who are not in debt high prices are more attractive than low prices, notwithstanding they involve paying as much more for what is bought as is gaidad by selling for more what is sold. Hope for reconcilliation to the gold standard in tliiw respect rests chiefly upon the power of time to render its elFects familiar. Every year tliat it is maintained the memory of former hj;li prices becomes weaker, and, eventu-, ally, after existing debts have been paid off, the conditions of wImcIi debtors now complain will no longer survive to cause disoontent. Habit, however, like confidente, is of slow growtli, and the process of educatiuf; people iuto the acceptance (f the gold standard by its contiuued prevalence must neeessarily be slow and tedióos, besides being liable to interruptions by accident, which may undo iii a month the work of years. A speedier and more certain way of reconciling to the supremacy of gold the peopie wlio now detest ït will be a denionstration tliat uader it as well as uader the reign of silver liigli prices may prevail. Snch a cure for the silver craze, altliough it is not immediatply at hand is, iievertheless, approachintr. The world's production of gold is growing larger year by year, wliile the audden addition to the supply of other commodities, which comnienced 20 years ago, has received a check. Consutnption is therefore, catching up vrith production, and will thus aid in the restoration of the ancient level of prices. But whatever be the steps by which the result is reached, and the leiigth of time consumed in reaching t, 110 doubt can exist in the mind of the dispassionate observer of the cause of events that silver is doomed, sooner or later, in the great civilized conntries, to be discaided as aiiioney metil. It is going thé way of sheep, 1 cessively been in Europe used as money;of wampum and skins, which were the currency of our own early days, and it will take ts place with cowries, salt, tobáceo, tea, and other commodities which still survive as circnlating mediums in Asia and África. The European bimetallists talk of a "scientific" doublé standard, but the very name of a "doublé" standard is of itself unscientifle. Two standards may be employed alternately. but to combine them into one is as impossible as to make one auimal out of a horse and a cow. As to the alleged superior stability of such a chimera, it is enough to say that it adds to the inevitable iustability of a single standard, that of the fluctuation between two standards, neither of which can be counted upon to remain permanently in force. In short, bimetallism, national or international, is a self-evident scientific absurdity, advocated only from the same dishonest motive of debasing the currency which actuates the advocates of free silver coinage. lts avowed purpose is to reduce the value of the monetary unit, or in other words, to peí creditors to accept in payment of tlieir claims less than they are entitled by their contracta to recieve. Even for use as subsidiary coin, silver is needlessly expensive, and its place can readily be fllled with bronze or some other cheap material, proteetion against counterfeiting being secured by workmanship superior to that now bestowed upon silver. The 360 odd millions of silver dollars stored away in our treasury váults might as well as not be sold for wliat they vvill bring as bullion. They add nothing to the valuó of the silver certificates, which represents them, since that valué is derived, like the valué of the legal tender notes, entirely from their availability in paying customs duties and internal revenue taxes. The whole mass of them and of the bullion purchased under the Sherman act might be annihilated, and the paper monev mominally based upon it would be just as valuable as it is now and would circuíate just as readily. If, too, all our silver dollars and fractions of dollars were replaced with bronze medals, these, too, would be just as good currency as silver coins are at present. They do not pass by virtue of their being composed of silver, but because the govenunent accepts them, and, consequently, the public accepts them, at their nominal valué in gold. Taking this country and Europe together, there is in existence silver used as money to the amount of perhaps $1,000,000,000, all of which, eventually, will come on the inarket and be sold and inelted up. The talk of politicians, who desire to plácate the partisans of silver, about promoting a larger use of silver for the purpose of arresting a further decline in its commercial value, proceeds therefore, either from blindness to facts or from wilful purpose to decieve. The gold standard is supplanting that of silver as surely as a locornotives, electricity and cables are supplanting horses on railroads and as Bieam engines are taking the place of sails on sliips. Silver money will be banished to the semi-civilized regions of Asia, África and South America, and there it will linger only until the march of improvement drives it out, as it will have been driven out here. The age of silver is past and that of gold has succeeded it.- Matthew Marshall, in New York Sun. neuralgia Is the prayer of the aerves ior pure blood. Hood's 8arjapariiia is the One True Blood PuriHier and nerve tmilder.