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Show BECK'S RESOLUTION CALLED UP. How the Payment of Duties and Government Bonds in Silver Is Viewed. Washington, January 6. In the Senate to-day Gray oalled up Beck's recent resolution resolu-tion of inquiry regarding the payment of customs duties in coin, and the application of that coin to the purposes of the sinking fund, etc. Gray said he would vote for it, but for reasons very different from those which actuated Beck and those who thought with him. The act of 1878, Gray said, was tentative. It was based on the idea that silver sil-ver would shortly reach an international ratio with gold. It was the hope of the attainment at-tainment of this international ratio that actuated many thoughtful men in voting for that bill. This hope had been disappointed. ; THE OBJECT OF THE BILL ' Had been defeated, and the dollar worth 92 cents in 1878, was now worth less than 80 cents. The passionate invective on the part of the silver men would not enhance -the value of the silver dollar. The actions and recommendations of the President and Secretary of the Treasury on the silver question, were right. He (Gray) was not here to defend any one, but economic laws were always the same. He was neither a bondholder nor a son of the bondholder, but he was for paying the bondholders in honest money. The true issue in question was whether THE TBTTE RELATION OF GOLD AND SILVEB Could be reached by a continuance of the present plan of silver coinage. He asserted this could not be done. ' Siver coinage had served a useful purpose as a subsidiary coin, but no country desired a basis of silver coin alone, and if gold were supplanted by silver we would" have a silver basis. The gold standard had kept us in easy relations with the rest of the world. Bi-metalism could not be reached by any one country alone. France had long ago stopped her silver coinage, coin-age, and should we, by continuing our present pres-ent course, drive out of the country several hundred millions of gold coin? H we did so we should have a contraction indeed. The act of 1878 having failed to raise the value of silver a persistence in OUB PBESENT PLAN OF 8ILVEB COINAGE Would bring us to a silver standard. We would be descending to the basis of an 80 cent dollar, and thus the Government of the United States would in fact be scaling its own debt. This would be a public misfortune misfor-tune as evidencing a condition of publio dishonesty dis-honesty which, to say the least, was equally reprehensible with individual dishonesty Many of those who favored silver coinage, were not, in Gray's opinion, the solid conservative con-servative business men but those of a speculative turn. He desired to see silver in circulation concurrently with gold, but the failure of the best efforts to get it into that condition was a sufficient proof that our continued coinage would be of no avail in that direction. We were all embarked on the same great voyage debtors and creditors credit-ors one fate awaited us all.. We should therefore honestly, endeavor to adjust our differences in order that the interests of all our people may be honestly and fairly advanced. ad-vanced. JlcPherson followed on the same subject. THE UNITED STATES TEEA.SUBY, He said, had become a vast and complicated machine. There were seven different factors in our circulation, in the form of various kinds of notes. If the coinage were now suspendedj silver might be got to a proper relation with gold, and in the opinion of the best authorities in the world we had now got to a point in silver coinage beyond which it was dangerous for us to go. The need of currency was a need created not by law, but business. Whenever the Treasury could no longer sustain a gold basis, then .the public would have to take care of the silver. THE SILVER DOLLARS Had thus far remained at par with gold because be-cause they had but a limited use and were limited in number within the limits of the public needs, but the Gresham law still held good after three centuries of observation, namely, that bad money drives out good money. All history taught that with a currency cur-rency of fluctuating values, as ours was tending to become, speculation was encouraged encour-aged and monetary ruin hastened. Loss would always fall -on the producers of our country, as the importers would protect themselves. Kef erring to the effect of silver in India, McPherson exclaimed : "God forbid for-bid that the American laborer should ever come to a condition like that of the laborer of India." THE BLOW AIMED BY THE SILVEB MEN At "the bloated bondholder," McPherson insisted, would strike with ten-fold force on the head of the laborer. The government had permitted its financial agent. Jay Cook, to advertise that the interest on bonds was payable in gold. . (McPherson produced such advertisements.) Beck inquired how much the purchasers of tbe bonds had paid for them. - . McPherson replied that made no difference. differ-ence. The government having held out such representations it could not now ignore them. It could not play fast and loose with its creditors The reference by .McPherson to en understanding under-standing that THE BONDS WERE TO BB PAID IN GOLD Brought from Morgan, Harris and Beck a simultaneous and energetic insistence that the payment in "coin" and not "gold" was the understanding and agreement. To show that business was already becoming becom-ing alarmed at our course with regard to silver, sil-ver, McPherson read a letter from the manager man-ager of the Liverpool & London & Globe Insurance Company, stating that the company, com-pany, in view of the great uncertainty with ! regard to the coinage, had decided to make no further terms except on a speoifio agreement agree-ment or their repayment in gold coin. On the conclusion of McPerson's remarks, Brown gave notice that to-morrow he wor ask to be heard on the resolution of Beck. |