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Show THE DOUBLE COIN STANDAED. The New York Tribune puts forth a very ingenious article arguing that the national debt is payable both morally aad legally in silver, for the reason that it was in 1873 that congress con-gress destroyed the double standard which had previously been in existence. exist-ence. Tho argument is logically sound and i3 to the effect that congress con-gress had no right after the contraction contrac-tion of the debt to take any step which would be of advantage either to creditor or debtor. Its business only in the premises was to carry out the """ contract, whatever it was, without prejudice t either party. It ia obvious obvi-ous that to pay in paper would be to take advantage of the creditor, just as to pay in gold when it might have been silver, would be equally unfair tothedebtor. The Tribune holds that congress had no right to deprive the nation of the option to pay in silver, which it hod, it alleges, when the debt was contracted, and up to the dato above sot forth that ia, 1873. This is the view held by ox-Senator Doolittle and also by Senator Jones; but the San Francisco Call denies that the double standard prevailed up to 1873, and that the discontinuance of the coinage of dollars bad nothing whatever to do with it. Congress in the year 18-53, twenty years befure the time specified by the Tribune, passed a law prescribing that ailver should bo a legal tender only for the sum of o. That law destroyed tho double standard. stand-ard. But Senator Jones roturns to hi.? Lobby. In hw speech of la-rt Wednesday Wed-nesday he hold that no living man has tho courage to faco tho conso-quenceaof conso-quenceaof specie payments now, if specie payments are to bo rnado in ( gold. In reply to Hen a tor JJwlh.ji Mr. Jones says that tho option of tho , ' government to pay tho national debt j in silver or gold at tho ratio of sixteen j i one, m provided by law m it stood 1 when the war debt was contracted, is y now worth $300,000,000 to the coun- i try in solid cash, a consideration which the gold resumptionista propose to waive. But the question whether g the national debt is payable in silver ( dollars or not Senator Jones holds is a trivial one compared with tho one whether our state and municipal and corporation indebtedness which was i contracted in depreciated paper ' money shall be forced to be paid in ' gold dollars, which are 13 per cent. J more valuable than the paper unit in which these debts were contracted, or in silverdollarj. Contract and obligations obli-gations are now based upon the paper dollar, and the scumble and honest course would be to reduce the gold dollar rather than to raise the paper one, for the paper dollar and not the gold one is tho dollar upon which all our business a flairs, mortgages and other contracts are based. To restore silver to free coinage and legal tender is simply to place it where it stood Irom the time when the white man first trod this country down to the year 1S73. It is to place it where it should stand, the peer of the gold dollar, both of them legal tenders to' any amount for tho payment of . debts, the option between them to pertain to the tender when ho loans money and to the borrower when he j pays it. Senator Jones then proceeds J to state his plan as follows : 1 Sly own plan is simply that uhrch was tho law of the land from 1702, as : amended in IS 14 and IS 3, namely, an unqualified double standard at sixteen 1 Cor one. I say unqualified, although ! eiiico 1853 lractional coins, halves, quarters, quar-ters, dimes and halt dimes havo been : debased. I proposo no chango in the , real present adoption of thi3 plan, which is to bo c fleeted by simply restoring the silver dollar to be togal tender, and free coinago would involve tho purchase by government of from one hundred mil- : lion to two hundred million of dollars of silver wherewith to resume- specie pay-meat?. pay-meat?. This purcha-e would, ns I believe, be-lieve, and in this I am backed by all exporienco, havo tho efleot of restoring the market relation of sixteen for one and thus the market's legal relation would become the same Ihe ono hundred or two hundred million thus purchased would take all or nearly all the silver tht Germany has left, and would fully counteract any ell'ect upon tho market ratio which the attempted change of standard has thus far been chiefly instrumental in-strumental in producing. Thus we should start substantially at the senator from California contends we ought, at such logal relation between silver and gold as corresponded, or as soon would correspond with tho market ratio, and therefuro il will not be necessa-y even from his point of view to change tho relation re-lation from the old ono of sixloonfor one for any other. The senator then proceeds to state that the apprehensions of an over-supply over-supply of silver sufficient to reduce the market ratio between the metals, are fallacious. Ho asserts that in I all the United btates there are not ten silver mines that are paying expenses, and that no district outside ef the Comstock, which is now being worked at a depth of 1,900 feet, is there any profit in silver mining. The world's total to-tal annual product of silver is actually a trifle les3 now than it was threeyears ago, and but twice as great as it was a century ago. The production of silver, he says, has fluctuated far les3 than that of gold, and has preserved an even relation to the production of food and other principal articles of subsistence. He shows that no confusion con-fusion would result from the use of three kinds of dollars, gold, Bilyer and paper, for the reason that the silver would replace the piper, and as between be-tween silver and gold the cheaper will be used exclusively as the means of payment. The speech, of which the above is a mere synopsis, is exceedingly ex-ceedingly ingenious and is treated in a very original manner. vice; $139,000 for the capital buildings build-ings and grounds; $1S7,300 for surveying sur-veying public lands. An amendment appropriating $50,-000 $50,-000 to defray tho expenses of the senate in the Belknap impeachment case was agreed to. Recess tilt evening. i it the evening session the sundry! civil appropriation bill came up. Several amendments proposed by the I appropriation committee were agreed to, including those raising tho appro-j priation for appraisers stores at Sun Francisco from $50,000 to $100,000, and appropriating $200,000 for continuing con-tinuing work on the dry docks at Mare island. At length tho bill was reported to the senato, the amendments eon curred in and the bill passed. No quorum being present, the senate sen-ate adjourned at 11.15 p.m. without further action. |