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Show GOLD, SI LVtllt AX1 IVlaEK.j Secreturj Nhermiiu's Views ouj our 3iouvy. Chicago, 11 Secretary Sherman furnished the Tribune's Washington oorrec pond e nt a statement ol hia financial poiiiyof which the following ! is the suboUnc: The silver question has two extrem- b equally-threatening 1 and plausible, one represented in the eajjt and tiie other in the west. Tne disputeH n ill result in a rcf'rr shing ; shower of silver to re u lace pappr and facilitate resumption in both gold and silver. To compel creditors to take silver coin for all debu wnen it is ten per cent, below gold now would immediately im-mediately depreciate the purchasing power of a dollar five per cent, below gold, would destroy credit, stop our funding operations which are reducing reduc-ing the public debt, drive from the country all the gold and leave us with what our silver friends eo much denounce, de-nounce, a single standard of Bilver bullion. Guod sense reveals l tic results of this doctrine. Tiie other extreme opinion would demoralize silver which is absolutely essential for the daily want, which is the coin more universally used than any other and in which the rich and poor are alike interested. The iree uic of both metals, convertible in each other, and both equal currents of value ot tho genuine bimetalio standard of value is usrtumcd by the gold monc-metalic monc-metalic to bo impossible, in face of the fact that gold cannot be divided so as to meet one of the hundred daily wants of lilo. Both these extreme ex-treme opinions will assuredly be j abandoned eventually. It is an old dispute which government baa always al-ways adjusted by issuing both metals as coin and maintaining them equal in value at a fixed rate by limiting 'the amount it issues. Metal more valuable in the market than its legal ratio can be issued without it. The metal lens valuable in '.he market than its legal ratio muat be limited in its isaues, leaving the absolute ueed of it to fix the umount. In our couutry, where wo are struggling to ifnako our papor money equal to coin, we are happily in a condition to do this ejsily, and with profit to tho government. The way ia to issue silver coin whenever demanded, the smaller coin being exchanged for either fractional paper money or United States notes, which may then be retired. Silver coins havo already superceded the body of Iractional currency, and they are i legal tender to tho same extent. Let government buy the silver bullion at what it is worth, coin silver dollarn and issuo them Jreely to everybody who will surrender a paper dollar. This isa fair and voluntary exchange. I'he silver dullar ought to be received by government and made a legal tender precisely as tho paper dollar. In this way perhaps 50,000.000 ailver dollars will supersede 50,000,000 paper dollars, more or less. This process will bring both paper and j diver nearer and nearer to the stand-1 point of gold, and will soon bring all our money to the same value. Wej will then have paper money support 1 ed by tho public credit, wilb gold and silver coin ia abundance, bo that every man who haa either his labor or productions to sell can have either kind of money, and all of the same value, aud according aa ho wants lo carry it in large euniB or for daily uoe, and cbango or for foreign exchange ex-change he will take paper, silver or gold. This will make all interchangeable inter-changeable and make gold the ultimate ulti-mate standard. It would doublleBS be better if gold and silver could have aa international standard, but this is now impracticable. We may use silver alone as China docs, and plenty of countries are ready to take all the gold we have. We cannot aflord to buy and sell in the world at the gold standard and compete with them, nor can we deny ourselves the great convenience of an ample silver currency, just equal to gold, by confining its issue to tho actual demand de-mand for it. We are now so near a uniform standard of all kinds of money, that I have too much confidence con-fidence in the shrewdness of our people peo-ple to believe that they will take a step backwards. |