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Show KEY PITTMAN SAYS SILVER SIL-VER WILL NOT GO DOWN One of the most optimistic statements state-ments regarding the prospects for the s'.lver metal market is that given out by Senator Key Pittman,. who does not think that silver metal in this country will go below a dollar an ounce. His opinion on the future of the white metal is as follows: "There is no doubt that the price of silver, with the exception of American Amer-ican silver under the Pittman act, is fixed in London without regard to the supply or demand for the metal. London has used this arbitrary power for a great many years. Those brokers brok-ers who constitute the committee ex-, ercising' this, vast power are supported support-ed by the British government. " Our government has for many years been actually antagonistic to silver. The facts surrounding the production, produc-tion, use and marketing of- silver make it clear that a more stable price could be maintained through an American Am-erican export . selling . agency. ' -This association should be - made up" of every silver producer in' the United States, Canada and Mexico. ' "The association, in addition to being a selling agency, should also be a credit association, so that it could lend credit to its members and thus prevent the simultaneous dumping of large quantities of silver upon the market. This, I believe, could be very eas;ly arranged. , - ' "The general warehouse act could be so amended as to permit the storage stor-age of silver bullion against the time of shipment and1 the execution and delivery of warehouse receipt. The warehouse receipt would be good security se-curity at any federal bank. Through this character of legislation, the association as-sociation could finance itself and through such finances extend credit to its individual members'. "I think that it is an 'admitted fact that the demand' for silver during the last twenty, years has annually far exceeded the production. The natural law of supply and demand; however, is artifically eliminated because of the fact that there is pract'cally only one buying agency in the world, and j of course, there are thousands of producers and sellers of silver. Lon- 1 don buys silver for India and China, , and takes advantage of the thousands thous-ands of sellers who have no channels through these London brokers. "The ultimate disposal of the silver sil-ver question will be an international agreement fixing Its value. No such j agreement can now be obtained be-. I cause the buyers of silver will- not agree to a price that 'he producers will fix so long as they can forcj the price down belov f-'ici proposed vr.l-uatien. vr.l-uatien. I "The association that we have under un-der discussion will undoubtedly have a tendency to stabilize the price of silver and to hold the price somewhere some-where around a dollar an ounce; in other words, to be real parity with gold of $1.29 an ounce. "When England and France and other countries see this result they will, in self-defense, be required to enter into some agreement to stabilize stabi-lize the price of silver. "This proposed association, in my opinion, does not at all Interfere with some other plans that we have on foot, for the extension of the benefits of the Pittman act. In fact, such an association would be of great value in obtaining any legislation necessary to a further extension of the Pittman act. "Some of -the Smelting companies have. not shown sufficient Interest in such an association: They cannot long maintain this selfish attitude; nublic sentiment and public resentment resent-ment will be too. strong. "We are still working on plans which were referred to just prior to the adjournment of clongreF?. The success of some of these plans depends de-pends upon the stabilization of cer-t.a:n cer-t.a:n foreign governments. These are matters that cannot he forced very rapidly. When the proper moment arrives, ar-rives, we will be ready to act. 'I do not believe that American silver will vere again go below a dollar dol-lar an ounce Mineral Survey.' |