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Show BRITISH EXPERT DISCUSSES WORLD'S SILVER SITUATION Says Sudden Decline in Price Followed Mysterious Mysteri-ous Trip of Sir Rufus Isaacs Last September PRODUC F,1'S (if silver will remember remem-ber that the price advanced to $1.10 per ounce last September and then suddenly took a dive to around 85 cents, says the New York Sun. Many theories have been advanced for the decline, de-cline, in face of the general prophecy that the. price would go much higher. The following explanation bv Morton Frew-en. the well known Britisli economics econom-ics expert, phiees an entirely new phase upon the qucslion and will be mad with interest throughout the lead-silver districts dis-tricts of the west. 'In September Inst, certain emissaries emis-saries left this country on some mysterious mys-terious errand connected with the India office of finance. The head of the mission mis-sion va Sir Rufus Isaacs, now known as Lord Heading, who since, his return has been advanced to an earldom, the only Hebrew to attain thai dignity hith erto, excepting Benjamin Disraeli. Exactly what was the nature of the 'deal ' with the government of the United States which at once paralyzed the silver market and is rewarded with an earldom I do not know, but I would like to draw public attention to the results. At the close of September the price of silver had reached $1.10 an ounce, and must, in view- of the immense requirements of the government of India In-dia for the year at hand, have gone much higher. Such a price is in relation to gold as 17i2 is to 1. Today the price of silver has fallen to So cents, a ratio of 22 to 1. This vast catastrophe in the exchanges with half the human race earns an earldom.. 1 now beg to put on record the veritable renaissance of Chinese finance last September, because of the then rise in price of silver. China Important. "I hope that in the days to come the T'nited States may establish with the Chinese republic, for its everlasting benefit, and the world. 's. the same sort . of political suzerainty that Great Brit-i Brit-i uin has established in the peninsula of I Hindustan. In a sense, China, after the j war, can be a most valuable economic I complement to the United. States and ! one of her very great markets, 'the United States can do tiiercin, generously 1 and through an open door, what tier-! tier-! many had intended to do vilely with terrorism and with those exclusive com-j com-j mercial methods the world is now familiar fa-miliar with. Thus. China's financial recovery re-covery is of" infinite importance to every port, not on t he American Pncitic coast only, but for your Atlantic ports, too. via Panama. "Now, on the very day w-hen silver stood at $1.10 (September 26) the special spe-cial correspondent of the London Times in Pekin posted a letter in Pekin, which can be read in the Times of November 23, and which deserves re-publication in every commercial newspaper iu America. Amer-ica. It shows the magnificent market for American goods which the activities activi-ties of Lord Reading and his mission, operating your silver market, has once more closed to American and British sellers. ' "The commerce of an allied nation of nearly 400.000,000 people, has -ben suddenly elevated because of that brilliant bril-liant and entirely natural advance in her exchanges with the gold standard nations. The Shanghai merchant, who but a few mourns before had bought gold exchange on Xew York with eight taels, was about to b'-.v it at the old rate of three taels for five gold dollars (or one sovereign). Market Almost Righted. "Under normal conditions of supply and demand in the world '3 silver market, mar-ket, silver had almost righted itself, and the export trades of the United States to Asia had at last "come by their own." At this supreme moment enters Sir Rufus Isaacs, and lo! the exchange ex-change market with suO.OOOi'iO Asiatics is again handed over to a vcrv few prodigiously .wealthy houses, who are now once again to manipulate a vast gamble in "puts and calls'' of silver. "I pointed out in a letter which vou published on November 17, and in which I gave the figures Irom the government at Ottawa, that in the Cobalt camp (Ontario) at the price of silver hist September, 2o0o miners were producing silver of a value of over .f 1 ij.ijui) per miner per year, and I asked whether values in an industry of such importance to a score of affiliated trades, timber ,)nrQ. i . I .. . . -1, i .... - railways and coal mines, whether this was an industry to make once more .1 foothall for gamblers, both ut'hin and without our legislat 111 es. The promrt answer to this question was the Heading Head-ing mission to the United States. "I am constantly told that malfeasance malfeas-ance where the cryptic question of 'exchange' 'ex-change' comes in is inevitable, because the average man would much rather be ruined than study logarithms. Let us then transfer the 'silver question' to quite another plane and a.ik the consideration con-sideration of the people, not to its relevance rele-vance to the. financial rejuvenation of a nation fChinnj to which we are a.l lied in this war, but. to its infinite importance im-portance to the allied nation which have to buy copper, lead and zinc fur war munitions thoi-e which the stranglehold stran-glehold of our allied navies makes it impossible for the Hun to obtain. Affects Case Metals. "The 'dear- mav or rnny not purchase- a fw million owners a month for ttr ' Bland at'nnw opTate.l by Mi'1 jjovrrnmeiit r.f Ind-H, tor .'JO c'nt4 nn ounce. J s s than th' rty tn r;i I rna rk M r;i t c, hut in J r i n is hf- not. M ;r i nrj. Mm m;irk nt, for t hnr v;-,)- nsrrittalf anl nMi;,' inj.' nn ((J pfJy far higher prices than we otherwise should for all those base metals? I take for an illustration the case of the big sulphide silver-lead deposits at Broken Hill. Australia. The metallic, content of the ores in Park City, Utah, aud a dozen more American big 'wet ore' sil or camps in Colorado, Montana-and Montana-and Idaho, will all tell about the same tale as Broken Hill. "The Broken Hill lode carries, per ton 01 crude ore, some 15 ounces of silver. 25 per cent, of lead and 25 per cent of zinc The total cost of mining min-ing is, I learn from the Sulphide corporation, cor-poration, nor ton, of muling and smelting, .f.3. So that, with silver at the average price, of the last ten years (sriv 150 cents), the silver h -product i$0) nearly pays the cost of mining and milling, but at 120 cents there is an added profit of $0 a treated ton, which would enable the lead and zinc to he sold at much low-er prices. "I point out, also, in my letter of November 17, that, the world is con-ironted con-ironted with a most daaigerous shortage of at. least 2'0,00n.000 ounces of silver a year; that unless this shortage is made good and available against the Indian specie drain by the opening of new silver mines, we here in London and New- York equally lav bare our gold i reserves to a most perilous drain to Asia. Protect Gold Reserve. "These conditions are well known to every student of exchange. Why, then, has Lord Heading and his recent mission mis-sion clean undone us.' In Great Britain we have not the remotest idea with what argument he buttresses his attack on American silver-lead industries and why the great houses of Samuel Montagu Mon-tagu &. t o. and the Guggenhcims desire, de-sire, if they do, to clip' the bullion prioe of silver at a time when both higher exchanges with Asia, and a great addition to the yield of silver, lead, copper and zinc are so important to our efficient conduct of the war. "I hope that in the days at hand we may elicit in parliament some reply to these trade questions as to silver. On a satisfactory settlement of this so-called 'silver question,' which is really the whole 'gold question,' it depends de-pends whether after the. war we shall in this ucneration resume specie payments pay-ments or whether what now remains of our gold reserves shall take ref.tge in Asia and await the last trump within Asiatic hoarding places. In the meau-time. meau-time. just to give us breathing space, we earnestly pray that congress will find means to keep safelv that lari; gold reserve which the United States , has accumulated, because if any portion por-tion of it is released with India's exchange ex-change as todav not a sovereign can stop here: it will all just pour ellmcll into British India. "Until the world's production of silver sil-ver shall have at leat doubled, our western gob! reserves require of our statesmen and financiers the erv closest clos-est watch and wa r I. " |
