Show I I SENATOR WOLCOTTS SPEECH Senator Wolcott has delivered his I long promised and anxiouslyawaited speech on the mission of the bimetallic bimetal-lic commission to Europe It must I be said that the speech Is rather disappointing appoInting It tells little if anything that was not known before The senator sen-ator appears to have hope as to the future fu-ture of bimetallism but what he says can give no hope to others He says that the administration stood loyally by the commission In all its efforts and he effectually dispores I of the absurd story that the president directed our ambassadors to whisper to the various governments that the I commission was a byplay and that the administration did not desire to have it taken too seriously I Speaking of the London press i Senator Sena-tor Wolcott says I The newspapers of London like the newspapers of many of the capitals of I the world are dominated and allied with the banking element and reflect their views and often their expressions The business of moneyloaning is an engrossing pursuit tot always tending to the cultivation of the amenities of life and it Is not to be wondered at that the London newspapers voicing that industry should in their hostility to a policy of which they disapproved forget fo > the moment that courtesy which is due to the stranger within the I gates especially when he comes upon Ito I Invitation and that they should be led to characterize proposals as impertinent imperti-nent which were made only upon the request of their own government Just what the senator means by this I is not certain Does he mean that the commission was in England on the invitation in-vitation of the British government If he does his view that they were thereon there-on such invitation will not be generally accepted and yet this seems to be the meaning he intends to convey He speaks of the proposals that were made i upon the request of the British government govern-ment The real question is Who requested I re-quested the meetings held at the for eign office July 12 1897 and July lu 1S9I The correspondence presented to both houses of parliament in October 1897 does not state who requested these meetings But is it not a fact that they were arranged for by Ambassador Hay When Ambassador Hay and the members of the commission met Lord Salisbury Lord George Hamilton the I Kt Hon Arthur J Balfour and Sir Michael HicksBeach it was the most natural thing in the world It was the only proper thing to do for Lord Salisbury Salis-bury to invite a statement from the representatives of this government ns to the nature of their mission This could hardly be called an invitation of proposals This part of Sepator Wol cotts speech is either ambiguous or disingenuous He says that it was perfectly realized real-ized from the beginning that bimetallism l bimetal-lism for England was out of the question ques-tion If this is so then why did Senator Sen-ator Wolcott at that meeting on July 12 request that England should agree I to open English mints as its contribution contri-bution to an attempt to restore bimetallism bi-metallism by International agreement He made that request on behalf of the special envoys > He makes it certain beyond quibble that the reply of the Indian government govern-ment decliningto open its mints to silver sil-ver was its own deliberate judgment uninfluenced by public opinion in London Lon-don or anywhere else He says that while the world has heard much of the famine In India it has not been so generally known that the famine was one of money rather than of food More than six months ago The Herald pointed out how the closing clos-ing of the Indian mints aggravated and Intensified the evils In the manner indicated In-dicated by the senator j Among the obstacles with which the A > < commission had to contend was tariff I legislation To ask commercial nations na-tions to join us in an eftort to establish estab-lish bimetallism and at th < same time I to enact a tarIff wa1l thatwould prevent pre-vent them deriving any benefit from bimetallism bi-metallism so far as trad with the United States was concerned was at least an Incongruity Senator Wolcott says that the members mem-bers of the commission Insisted that letters sald to have been written by the secretary of the treasury must be forgeries and that interviews purporting purport-ing to emanate from him were fictitious fictit-ious and he says he trusts they were Why does he trust Why did he not so soon as he returned ascertain from Secretary Gage himself whether or no the letters wereforgeries and the interviews In-terviews fictitious Then he would have been underl no necessity to trust I or mistrust 1 1 j I He says itis his sincere conviction that an International bimetallic agreement agree-ment is still feasible by the terms of which certain countries will join and open their mints to the unlimited coinage coin-age of silver and bthers will contribute contrib-ute to plan an enlarged usage of the metal as money It is really to be regretted re-gretted that he did not mention the names of these certain countries Are these certain countries the ones to which President ilcKinley referred in his message to congress when he said negotiations looking to a bimetallic agreement > vere still pending And are they the leading commercial nations na-tions referred to in the St Louis platform Whatever countries they are he thought that a change of ratio might be necessary and suggested 20 tol Senator Wolcott takes occasion near the close of hia speech to go for Secretary Gage and his financial plans But why go for Secretary Gage and not for President McKinley In other words why beat the devil around the bush He says that what the Jresident said in his message of December 7 on the subject of international bimetallism bimetal-lism is utterly at variance with what Secretary Gage said before the committee com-mittee when he presented his financial finan-cial plan the avowed object of which was to strengthen the gold standard Most certainly they are at variance but they are not one bit more at variance va-riance than were the presidents special message to congress in special session asking the appointment of a monetary commission and his message of December De-cember 7 The secretary of the treasury treas-ury is the mouthpiece of the administration I admin-istration on financial questions and I when he speaks in his official capacity he speaks authoritatively If the president presi-dent and Secretary Gage are not in full harmony on the financial question why is Secretary Gage in the cabinet The simple truth of the matter is that on the silver question the president I has been Janusfaced To those who j j I think otherwise Is left the task of re conciling his various attitudes Senator Wolcott says that the time when this country will submit to the final imposition of gold monometallism is far away What does the attempt of the administration to strengthen the gold standard mean but the final Imposition Im-position of gold monometallism upon I the country The senators speech shows that he wants to stand by silver and the administration ad-ministration at the same time To do this is to attempt to ride two horses at the same time each going in an opposite op-posite direction from the other |