Money: Speech of Hon. John P. Jones, of Nevada, on the Free Coinage of Silver; in the United States Senate, May 12 and 13, 1890Jones, John P. (John Percival)
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Money: Speech of Hon. John P. Jones, of Nevada, on the Free Coinage of Silver; in the United States Senate, May 12 and 13, 1890
Jones, John P. (John Percival)
Silver question -- Speeches in Congress
The monetary disturbance which has occurred, and is now to a
certain extent acting very injuriously upon trade, I attribute to
the great changes which the Governments of Europe are making in
reference to their standard of value. Our gold standard is not
the cause of our commercial prosperity, but the consequence of
that prosperity. It is quite evident that we must prepare
ourselves for great convulsions in the money market, not
occasioned by speculation or any of the old causes which have
been alleged, but by a new cause with which we are not
sufficiently acquainted.
And again in March, 1879, when the effects of the decreasing volume of
money were making themselves more and more felt, Mr. Disraeli, then Lord
Beaconsfield, said:
All this time the produce of the gold mines of Australia and
California has been regularly diminishing, and the consequence is
that, while these great alterations on the continent in favor of
a gold currency have been made, notwithstanding that increase of
population which alone requires a considerable increase of
currency to carry on its transactions, the amount of the currency
itself is yearly diminishing, until a state of affairs has been
brought about by gold production exactly the reverse of that
which it produced at first. Gold is every day appreciating in
value, and as it appreciates the lower become prices. It is not
impossible that, as affairs develop, the country may require that
some formal investigation should be made of the causes which are
affecting the value of the precious metals, and the effect which
the change in the value of the precious metals has upon the
industries of the country, and upon the continual fall of prices.
In reaching their conclusions, Bismarck and others ignored the
fundamental principle that a gold supply that might be sufficient for
one country with a gold standard, and might even result in a measure of
prosperity to that country, would be wholly insufficient if other
countries should adopt the same standard and should enter upon a keen
competition and rivalry for the acquisition of gold.
The adoption of that standard by Germany and France was therefore not
only destructive of their own prosperity, but was a stunning blow at the
prosperity of England and all other gold-using countries. In taking
England for his model, Bismarck had not the condition of the toiling
masses before his mind, but the glamour of prosperity which surrounded
the creditor-barons.
The unprejudiced observer can not fail to perceive that the $370,000,000
coined under the Limited Coinage Act of the United States of 1878,
supplementing the gold stock of the western world, postponed great
industrial and financial crises. But the elements of these crises are
gathering, and, unless relief be soon forthcoming, will burst upon the
world with crushing severity.
DEMONETIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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