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Show Gladstone and Sir William liar-court, liar-court, with the approval of some other public men, were not ashamed asham-ed to utter in the house of commonsthat com-monsthat the appreciation of gold was welcome to England as a creditor' nation. ' Just because we are 'the great creditor nation of the world, our boasted love of fair play should make us constantly anxious for a standard which preserves pre-serves justice between ourselves and our debtors." This puts the matter very clearly, clear-ly, but if Mr. Powell, speaking for England, protests against the adoption of the gold standard as dishonest, because it increases the debt due that country by other nations, what shall we say of those Americans who clamor for the gold standard, when even Englishmen can see the injustice and hardship of this change? i An English Protect A jVritef Whe- Wants to ee. Fair flay , v- ! 1 " . ' Maintained. ; In the National Review an Englishman comes forward in defense of free coinage.-. This gentleman, .Mr. Powell, declares that the Englishman at least cannot can-not complain of the United States trying to prevent England from still further increasing the debt we owe it. Ho puts the case between be-tween the two countries as follows: "But as between the United States and ourselves, we have two nations confronting one another, in the clear and prominent relation of debtor and creditor (for they are our largest debtor and wo are their largest creditor), and over a period of more than 2o years no inconsiderable chapter in. the commercial life of progressive nations in n progressive age the value of the money measuring their mass of debt to us has steadily grown and grown to nearly double its former .. figure, and threatens, with the confirmation and extension . of the gold standard, stand-ard, to grow still more. It seems incredible that Englishmen should lecture the United States in sorrow and anger from the creditor's standpoint, and not even see that the facts of the case turn their argument dead against themselves. them-selves. The English nation has no wish to be dishonest, any more than the American nation. If Englishmen as a , whole saw, as their advisers might make them see, what a heavy ond grievous and additional burden this unforeseen unfore-seen and unintended appreciation of the money measure ha3 laid up-' up-' on their debtor kinsmen and rivals, they would surely as a whole echo Arthur Balfour's indignant protest against the doctrine which Mr. t i |
