WHEN SILVER WAS WORTH MORE THAN GOLD

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 120, 22 May 1937, Page 27

WHEN SILVER WAS WORTH MORE THAN GOLD

Through its' long, glittering career, silver has swayed.the destiny of men and nations, writes F. Van Gass in the

'Cape Times."

First of metals used as money, silver slowly turned primitive barter into buying and selling and made it easier and simpler to enjoy fixed wages and prices. Repeatedly in" financial history men have sought cures for money maladies in some appeal to silver. For more than 2000 years it was the world's chief medium of exchange. Listen today to native gossip •in any bazaar of the Orient, and in tireless repetition you hear the local words for silver coins— kran, rupee', piaster, peso, yen. Over and over you hear them like a theme song of commerce. In Far East bazaars silver still forms the fluent, common coin of daily use. ■ x

Trace the strange, 'chequered drama of silver through the centuries, and you see how vividly it parallels man's own dramatic conquest of Nature arid his rise to higher-standards of life. ,

Here and there from the Isle of Man to Asia Minor, silver has been mined. Before the Romans came the ancients worked mines in the British Isles. But Roman mines in what is

now Spain were richest. ■<* -._ Today about three-fourths of all silver produced comes from North America. Mexico alone sometimes yields nearly half of the world's annual output. ,' ■."" ',-•.' Man, using both silver and gold as money, has long puzzled over their relative buying, power.

By the code of Menes the ratio in Egypt, was fixed at two and one-half of silver to one of gold. On the other hand, in the early history of Arabia silver was worth ten times as much as gold, because of meagre communica-tions-with lands that had more silver than Arabia., ' _ , ■~: .' y . . ;

From the time .of the Caesars down to the discovery of America, gold was worth about twelve times as much as silver. Even after all the new gold

and silver mines were opened in America and elsewhere, the ratio stuck around 14 to 1 and 16 to 1 until about 1870, because so many lands used silver as money. When the. gold standard idea spread, silver crashed; by 1902 one ounce of gold would buy about 39. ounces of silver.

Less costly than gold or 'platinum, almost plastic in the hands of clever silversmiths, silver's.everyday uses ara legion. Designs on both sterling and plate is a maker's first concern.

The word "sterling" means silver of a definite fineness. Pure silver is top soft for' use. But add just a little copper, only 7 J per cent., and you have substantial 'enduring sterling. These proportions were used long before 1250 and have never been changed. \Sterling is an ancient word. It is a contraction of "Easterling." In the twelfth century there flourished in Germany the Hanseatic League, comprising certain free towns.'These towns issued -money of their own, arid in trading with English merchants, gave their silver coins for British cattle, sheep, and wool.

y The British soon learned that money from these Hansa towns was always'the same, always dependable. Soon they came to insist on the coins of the Easterlings, or those from the east of Britain. Later "Sterling" was made the standard both for English money and for the manufacture of solid silver—the standard of highest quality.

About 40 per cent, of all silver used in our arts and industries goes, into sterling. Its second largest use is in making silver nitrate, mostly for the photographic trade.

Literally tons of silver are so consumed. And this metal is made to work, over and over again. In Hollywood, for example, millions, of-miles of films are rxpoi|d-annually; formerly, this used film with its valuable silver content was discarded. Now, by various ■ methods, all this precious metal is carefully recovered. Today even small-town studios find means to save much silver from waste.