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Show Special Committee to Investigate Silver , oi- '' The special committee , created creat-ed in the closing hours of the senate to investigate and report on the silver situation with the view to securing wider use of the metal as money and to stabilizing stab-ilizing the price at a figure that will insure a fair profit to the producer will doubtless be delayed delay-ed to some extent in taking up it work on account of the death of Senator Nicholson, of Colorado, Colora-do, who was the chairman of the committee. Other members of the committee are Senator Gooding, of Idaho ; Senator Walsh, of Montana, and Senators Sena-tors Oddie and Pittman of Nevada. Ne-vada. These senators represent three of the important silver-producing silver-producing states, and their work will include an exhaustive study of the cost of producing silver, the necessity for maintaining a price that will encourage production, pro-duction, and the possibility of reaching an agreement with other nations that will stabilize the price. The silver people are not asking the government to arbitrarily fix the price of the metal, nor &re they looking forward for-ward to the establishment of a duoble monetary standard with the value gf silver at a fixed ratio with $rold. They do contend con-tend that silver is a highly de sirable money metal and that its wider I use, particularly by thecountries of Europe, would haver a far-teaching influence in Solving the financial diffiulties 6f Europe and in restoring normal nor-mal commercial conditions. According to the director of the mint, purchases of silver at 1 per ounce under the terms Of the Pittman act will be .completed .com-pleted about the first of Uuly. This is considerably in advance of the time contemplated by the Silver producers, and means that Within thi-ee months the domestic domes-tic product will be sold in the open market where the price is now around 67 cents. Unless there are other influenes operating oper-ating to sustain the price it is naturally asssumed that the diversion di-version of the American product to the open market will tend to reduce the price below that figure, fig-ure, and possibly to a point that will make production in some quarters unprofitable. - It is therefore evident that the silver miners of the west are confronted confront-ed with a grave situation, and it is hoped that the senate committee com-mittee will be able to present a report to the next congress which will be followed by a permanent per-manent solution of the silver ; question. |
