Q.Is this new product of gold increasing or decreasing? A.—It is increasing with enormous rapidity.
Q.—Give the figures? A.—In 1873 the world's gold product was $96,200,000; in 1880 it was $106,436,800. In the year 1890 it was $118,849,000. In 1894 it was $180,626,100; For 1895 the exact total is not yet compiled, but it is closely estimated at $199,500,000.
Q.—What does this mean? A.—It means that the amount of gold annually added to the world's money supply has more than doubled in the last twenty-three years.
Q.—Is not this annual rate of production liable to decrease? "A.—On the contrary, all experts in the American, Australian, and South African gold fields look for a further and very heavy increase over the present rate of production.
Q.—But has not the disuse of silver with full coinage facilities cut down the total annual addition to the world's metallic money supply? A,—It has not, Q.—What was the highest record of that period? A.—Between 1856 and 1860 the world's average annual production of gold was $134,083,000; of silver, $37,618,000; total, $171,701,000, or less by $27,800,000 than last' year's production of gold alone.
Q.—What are we to say, then, of the argument that the money supply, since silver free coinage was abandoned, has been contracting? A.—That it is utterly false as applied to the world at large, and especially so as applied to the United States. price of wheat and many other farm pro-Q.—Is it true, nevertheless, that the
lucts has fallen heavily? A.—It is.
Q.—How are such declines, in wheat for instance, to be explained? A.—By the enormously rapid increase in grain-growing area throughout the world.
Q.—Has this increase been especially rapid since 1872? A.—The increase in in North America, South America, anc in-growing area in this period, especially
Asia, has never been approached in any equal period in the history of the world.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.