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Show What Should be Done lor Silver. When the proposition was before Congress to establish a currency for the Philippines the subcommittee sub-committee of the Senate called in Senators Teller arid Aldrlch to help formulate something that would accomplish what was needed. They had several meetings, called in witnesses and finally jl reported to the Senate that tho Philippines should 1 be placed upon u silver basis as no other ar- j rangement would be satisfactory. One of tho ' Guggenheims testified before that sub-committee his belief that silver would continue to advance and would be worth 75 cents per ' ounce within three or four years. The committee was unanl- i mous in Its report, even Senator Aldrich, one of the bitterest of goldbugs, signed the report. But the house rejected the report and passed the bill the senate concurring, which fixed tho present coinage on the Islands. But in a little I time, because of the advance in the price of silver j as a commodity, the silver in the Filipino coins 1 was worth more than the coins. Then the Chi- 1 nose traders bought up the coins, melted them, sold the bullion and the United States cannot keep the Islands supplied with coin. Now China cannot do business in any metals except silver and copper; neither can Japan, nor Spanish America nor any country of Asia or Africa or more than half of Europe. Quite threo-fourths threo-fourths of the Inhabitants of the earth know no other money. Why should the greatest silver-producing country in the world not only refuse It recognition, but never neglect an opportunity to . '. 8 v to degrade it? But, more especially, why I hoUj(1 the manufacturers and exporting mer- chants of our country be kept in perpetual an-I an-I xiety over a business proposition which could be gettied in five minutes by Congress? M As It Is wnen an American merchant buys and B sends a cargo of merchandise to China or South H America he does not know whither he is going to D get his pay in 80-cent dollars or in dollars worth I Two years ago, J. J. Hill, of the Great Northern . H and Northern Pacific railroads, put on two im-H im-H mense steamships to run in the China and Seattle I trade. Ia one of his speeches about that time he I said If China would buy flour to the amount of ?5 I per capita for her people it would bring to the United States $2,000,000,000 per annum. He tried-I tried-I it but found that China had not the five dollars. I She would be glad to purchase 100,000,000 ounces of silver per annum and pay for it through her R merchandlse and customs, she wants to develop H her wonderful but slumbering resources, but she II cannot for want of money. II Indeed, had all the silver taken from all our H mines since the discovery of the Comstock forty-H forty-H eght years ago been shipped to China, it would M not have given her people $6 per capita. We have over $33 per capita in one and another form of I money and yet wo are told that both New York H and London are worried over the drain, of gold H that has come upon them. The Bank of England IB has just borrowed $2,500,000 from the Bank of France "to tide London over January," and the Dank of England has doubled her usual discount II Wo believe that the annual demand of Europe l and the United States for the arts and for subsi-H subsi-H diary coinage, and the amount needed by Great H Britain for India and the Straits settlements, is IB more than is taken from all the mines of the TJnit-Hed TJnit-Hed States and Mexico. H Then why not consider the question from a H business standpoint? Why should not Congress pass a law to the ef-H ef-H feet that while maintaining the gold standard, the H Government will at the same time, to place the H business of our export merchants and manufac- turers dealing with silver countries on a stable H basis, receive silver in exchange from such coun-H coun-H tries at the rate of 90 cents (or ?1.00) per ounce, H and sell silver to such countries at the same rate. H That would fix the price of silver the world H around as fast as the cable could carry it. If any H congressman doubts that, lot the bill be made to I take effect 60 days after its passage. Such a law would fix the price of silver for probably ten years, until from natural causes its commercial valun would exceed its money value. To pass such a law the first requisite vould be to obtain from the Chinese ambassador an opinion of the amount China would be able to absorb. Then a strong man, like Senator Aldrlch for instance, should lay the matter before the Morgans, Rockefellers, Rocke-fellers, etc., in New York. If they would approve of it, and we believe they would, then introduce the bill and have the leading newspapers announce an-nounce that such a measure would not be antag' onized by the financial magnates and that it met the hearty opproval of manufacturers and exporting export-ing merchants, and it would pass. It would not only place silver on a stable basis, but it would be a mighty relief to the banking centers, for it would stop the flow of gold to Spanish Span-ish Am'erica, to Egypt and to Japan. Finally it would be a great thing for our trade with South America and the Orient. Is it not worth trying for? |