Show It THE REASON THEREOF II I I II That the extraordinary commercial and industrial development of the age has I created an everincreasing demand for the precious metals is a selfevident if proposition Some conception of the immensity of this demand can be gained by the scale of comparison In the year 1500 forty or miy million pounds sterling was all the 5 money tho world had coined from the precious metals r and an annual product I of one hundred thousand pounds I sterling sufficed Four untunes later in our own time a single Canstock mine has paid as high as four hundred thousand thou-sand pounds sterling monthly in dividends divi-dends This one comparison is amply sufficient to mathametically demonstrate the vast monetary increase required by advancing years and development andS and-S the enormous demand made on the precious metals by the colossal financial transactions of modern times Gold alone cannot meet this demand de-mand There is not enough of it The unequal struggle ret re-t suIts in financial disaster We have a It t contraction of the currency and a fall in iU prices And why is this Simply because I be-cause the world in its blind adhesion to the arrogant and incapable gold power I i refuses the aid of silver The precious white metal strong in its power to save l i has been demonetized and the slightest r falling off in the product of gold brings tf I financial contraction and distress I f The depression of silver has been I S accompanied by a decline in prices r and for many years manufactures manufac-tures have had to face a falling mhrket g the products of labor have failed to find labors equivalent The price of merchandise I chandise and the price of silver have about kept pace with each other while gold has advanced to a great and ty l ranical premium Thus as silver has 4 f declined so has mercantile values As 1 gold has advanced go has contraction 1 tightened its grip Silver registers the value of merchandise Gold registers only its own oppressive record A decline de-cline in silver is the synonym ol National and financial disaster for it unerringly indicates a corresponding S decline in all of the products of industry This is certain It is also certain that there will be floating prices as long as there is floating silver Hence it follows that to icstorc the S financial equelibrium of tho world silver must be restored Bimetallism is the only remedy The total product of both the precious metals would not bo more than snffiicent to supply the demands of the farreach 5 ing and inense business activities S of the day and generation The doubles double-s is the only shield the world can interpose between it and commercial depression S de-pression between it and financial calamity calam-ity It may bo accepted as a modern financial axion that no scarcity of either of the precious metals can exist without that scarcity being at once pointed out by the finger oi disaster The precious metals are indispensable to each other and to the world In a recent nrlcle in the Fortnightly Review Mr P ucks Gibbs one of S the most emincm I j the economists of S the day thus deals with the relations of l the precious r l ctal f J each other and the needs of a world j If the output of aVi 1 iietal greatly I increased and if hd mi ease was not 4 compensated by a falling on f the output out-put of the other the joint pi duct of the two metals would augnvnt the measure of value in the WOl id and if thfa were in a greater proportion than the lea e of population and commodities domanded prices would rise I If the production of i uher metal iv greatly diminished and the decrease was not balanced by a simultaneous increase I in-crease m the other population and commodities I com-modities not having decrea ed also prices would fall If the production of both metals S simultaneously increased or diminished 4 prices would rise or fall accordingly andS and-S the rise or fall would be greater than inS I in-S the two former cases The effect on prices in this last case would be the same r as that which is now produced in tin gold countries by an increased or diminished dimin-ished influx of gold and in the silver countries by an increased or diminished iaflux of silver Inasmuch then as the chances area are-a ainst a simultaneous increase or decrease de-crease of both metals it follows that the fluctuations caused by increase or decrease de-crease of production of the precious metals met-als are more frequent under our present system viz the English monometallic system than they would be under a comprehensive com-prehensive bimetallic union |