Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878] Being the Extended Title of the Wairarapa Daily, with which it is Identical. TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 1892. GOLD V. SILVER.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4063, 15 March 1892, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878] Being the Extended Title of the Wairarapa Daily, with which it is Identical. TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 1892. GOLD V. SILVER.

" Senator Bland's Silver Bill will probably pass both Houses." This telegram, dated "Washington, 9th March," will not lwye stirred the pulses of many of our readers; nay, wo may even compute, without offence, that the number of persons who understood its meaning when they Baw it in our columns could have ' been counted on the lingers of a man's two hands, even if the man had lost a digit or so in a saw mill. And yet the subject is not without its interest to the world, so that we shall be justified in offering a few remarks on the history and meaning of Bimetallism. The columns of a country newspaper are as little suited to the discussion of abstract monetary problems as they are to religions controversy or a dissertation on Fleas; and, I therefore, brevity is in this instance synonymous with propriety. But we have another reason for promising ;to bo brief—we do not know a great deal about Bimetallism ourselves. -We ! can only dare to paddle in the shal- : lows of the subject j directly we feel i that we are getting out of our depths we shall retire. The original Bland Act was passed 1 by the legislature of tbe United States in 1878. Its object was to compel tht United States Treasury to coin and set in circulation every year a cerlair very large quantity of silver dollars Tho passage of this measure w Fo' moted, of course, by all persons' in: terested in silver mines; and tbi proposal gained, at the same lime, tin clamorous, though unintelligent, sup port oi the Knights of Labou throughout the country. Thes latter had it into their head that industrial prosperity depend upon the volume of purrpnpy i] circulation—though the statistics c years have shown that nothing oi th kind can bo predicated, At all events the Bland Act of 1878 received sup port from the most opposite quartet! One party of its friends wanted t raise the price of silver; tho othe party wanted to raise .the price o everything. Or, to put it in anothe way, the advocatesof" Cheap Money were unreflecting enough to join witl tho advocates of "Dear Silver" ii bringing about a measure which ha not had the effect contemplated b by either class of its supporters, I has not raised the price of silver because the development of fres! mines and the discovery of cheapo ways of working them have produce such an increased supply that th market has fallen in the most uatura way. Anfj it has not cheapens money in tho sense intend^ [by th Knights of Labour, for reasons whicl will presently appear. The meaning of the Amended Blani Aot which, We are tola; is now likel to become law, is that the Unitei States Treasury shall be compelled t< buy all silver brought to it, and sual coin silver dollars therewith. And th intention of the Act is tc create i double standard, forcing gold an< silver into a fixed and artificial rela 'tion to each other. But the impose! bility of having a double standar must presently be demonstrated. Th original Bland Act was t keep silver up to its par value, whicl

is about 69d per ounce—that is to say, it stands to gold in the ratio of ' about Ito 16, It is not difficult to see ' that if this new 'Bill passes, the j current value of the enormous mass of circulating silver will be still . further depreciated, and gold will be ' at a heavy premium, ( It is true that the United States i oan do foolish things which would i bring immediate ruin to smaller countries. For instance, the full effect of a frightful protective tariff has not been able to make itself felt as yet, so vast is the country and so magnificent are its recuperative powers. But, in the process of time these pieces of experimental law mailing will bring their retribution upon faddist and fanatic, and we ■ shall see that the old principles of political economy were sound, oven when the United States flung them to the winds, i But there is just one respect in which the present movement should interest ourselves, If the silver* fanatics are successful, there will be—as we have said—a growing depreciation in the value of silver, and the grave difference between the nominal , and real value of the silver dollar will have a serious result, Thus, mortgages effected under t the original monometallic system, with its gold standard, will be cut down very speedily to their silver value, arid inr vestors will lose heavily by the process. Consequently, there will be an > exodus of foreign capital from the United States before this new Act is brought into operation; and the scare in the money market which we ourselves have brought about in our small way since the present Govern [ ment took office, will be created anew and with thousand-fold effect by our big and reckless Brother Jonathan,