The only way in which we can reach a decision on the question of the stability value of gold la to institute an exami of the prices of various commodities in relation te gold, Coincident with the first movement for the demonetization of silver there began, curiously enough, a remarkable decline in the prices of the great commodities which the world buys and sells at wholesale, 'This decline had begun to manifest itself in the years antecedent to 1878, and has continued down to the prosont' time, The highest economics! huthoritien are agreed that the prices of 1885 nnd 1886, as compared with those in 1866 to 1867, show " decline of about SI per cent,, and that the average decline since 1868 has been at least 5 per cent, additional, Cotton, wheat, corn, leather, have touched during' the past year the lowest prices known in history. Phe contention of most economists w have studied this remarkable decline that it hus been due to great improvements in methods of production and distribution, which have brought about great reductions in cost, Within two decades between 1873 and 1893 have been made all the great improves ments in railway locomotion and cotistruction, and in steamship navigation, which have greatly extended and groutly cheapened transportation. One of the chief effects of this improved modern system of transportation has been to compel a world-wide uniformity of prices for all commodities that are casontial to life, and to put an end to veal or merely national markets; for now every country is able to draw on the supplies of the whole world, and to get them at the prices set in the markets of the world, Thus the price of a bushel of is not regulated by the size of the single country, but by the size of the aggregated crops of all countries. A scarcity m_ one country is offset by an abundance in another, and cheapness and speed of transportation bring the total supply within the reach of all buyers. The reduction in railway freights during the period referred to has been very great, falling from two cours and more a mile in 1869 and 1870 to little more than half cent " mile in 1803. If the appreciation of gold has en the cause of this decline 1m prices, it ought to have affected all prices, This has not been the case. There has been common ratio of decline. Some prices have fallen, but others have risen, Among the Intter are those of labour, which is Dought and sold more than anything else on the free of the globe. The prices of Inbour, of all the large class of products or services which are exclusively or largely the result. of handicrafts, have greatly advanced. A given amount of gold does not buy more but less of domestic service and of manual and professional Labour generally now than it did formerly. It Duys no more of huraes and other domestic animals, of cigars, of hand-woven luce, of cut-gins, of pictures, of diamonds, or of malt liquors; and it bags no more of house rents, which depend largely upon the price of laud. Retail. prices generally have not fallen in proportion to the decline of wholesale prices If there had been an appreciation of gold, due to 9 scarcity, all these prices ought to have shown a decline in common with others. Then, too, the decline should have been common in all countries, which is not the ease, careful comparisons of price movements in different countries showing that the average fall in France and Germany has been less than in Great Britain, and greater in the United States than in any other country. 2 Aa to the supply of gold in the world, it is not to be denied that the annual product has diminished largely during recent yen But while the annual product has diminished, the supply of gold is greater to-day than ever before. Statistics show that the monetary stock of gold and gold reserve i the treasuries and banks of the ci world has shown an increase for every decade since 1850, at the end of 1885 nearly four times what it was in 1850, so that instead of there being a reduced supply as compared with former times, is a greatly incrossed supply. It should be borne in mind always, in considering the supply and annual product of both gold and silver, that these metals are not like other commodities of which the greater part of the annual production is annually consumed. They are not consumed, but merely used, and the only consumption involved comes from Joss and wear, which is comparatively trifling. They do their work over and over again, year after year, for decades and even centuries, and the supply is steadily growing with ti 'Then, too, the increased facilities for doing business, by which the trade of the world is carried on by credit capital, have reduced greatly the amount'
gold required in commercial transac. ti "Never before in the history of the world," says Mr. David A. Welle, "have there been so many and such successful devices for economizing the use of money." Says another authority, Nathaniel Cork: "A merchant may not hold ten credit The tendency sovereigns, but he may have capital and of the age, still another authority, Dr. Soetbeer to use continually less and less coin in the transaction of business and so far from there being any scarcity of gold, there never was a period in the world's commercial history when the existing quantity was ao largo as at present, in proportion to the necessity for its use or for the purposes it has to serve."—The Century.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.