Show FEASIBILITY OF FREE COINAGE fr v f it r THEN THE ADVOCATES of free coinage four ears s WHEN WW ago go were insisting upon its practicability without wait waiting t V V ing mg for the consent of any other nation among the goldbug arguments against it were S First The danger of a flood of silver from abroad Second The Tue impossibility of maintaining a ratio by law of 16 iG to i in value when the tile ratio r ti of o production was wasso wasso wasso so much higher For people of the silver states it is not necessary to point out the th absurdity of the first contention Countries that are j using silver on a basis b sis of 15 i or 15 i to t i or a rate not less than I Per ounce for silver will not to this country countr their silver stock in order to sell to the people of the tile United States for per ounce There is no store of silver anywhere and the th limited silver product disappears in foreign countries as fast as it is put on the market This matter has all been threshed out and decided de in the minds of the people Whatever merit the second contention possessed Posse sed has ha van from the discussion For or the last three th years the ratio of production has been approximately twelve ounces of silver to toone toone one of gold Those changed conditions that we hear h lr so much t about have changed in the th direction dire tion of bimetallism and not away from it itIn itIn itIn In 1896 1 6 our gene general al argument was that the ratio o pro production production had shown great fluctuations in different epochs and that 16 to i was as conservative a ratio as could be chosen in view view of the total world production of the two nl m it was safe because other nations put a higher valuation upon their thur silver sil er r The insisted strenuously upon the t e justice ju tic of determining the question by b the ratio of production I shown sh wn at that particular time If their argument was sound then it is equally sound now and to the tile full extent to which this factor enters into the settlement their own reasoning has demon demonstrated st the feasibility of independent action by this country |