Speech #480096221

It has decreased largely. taking the whole period together. since 1856. and during no part of that period has it increased. its consumption in the arts has fully overtaken the production. and there is nothing in the past history of the metal to induce us to hope that the future production can possibly keep up with such an iucrease of the consumption as is now plainly inevitable. There is. in short. as clear a certainty as is ever attainable in conducting human affirs by a forecast of the future that while increasing population and exchanges will be constantly requiring more metallic money. mankind are doomed to have constantly less of it if silver is stricken down from its immemorial position as one of the moneys of the world. In addition to the certainty that the money of the world will be subjected to the drain of an increased consumption of gold. there is an inminent danger. if the policy of depreciating and thereby discrediting silver is persisted in. that it will be subjected to another drain of vast and unknown dimensions from the diversion of Asiatic hoardings from silver to gold. The London Times of May 7. 1883. in the course of an article upon the rise. which it admits to have taken place. in the value of gold. says: The adoption of a gold standard for India. or. still more. the choice of gold in stead of silver for hoarding purposes lin tile East. would so change all the conditions of the problem as to upset all calculations. It must be true from the nature of the case that the further divergence between the values of gold and silver bullion will tend to diminish the confidence of the people of Asiatic countries in silver. or. what is the same thing. to inspire them with a greater confidence in gold as the repository of wealth laid up for the future. The Times is right in speaking of the possible change of Eastern hoardings from silver to gold as of more consequence as affecting the relations of the two metals than the. introduction of gold coinage into India. This view illustrates the enormous risk of any such experiment On our part. hopeful in no aspect. as the closing of our mints to silver. upon the theory that we can bear the consequences better and longer than England and Germany. and thereby force them into a bimetallic treaty.