A barrel of flour which in 1873 cost the purchaser $6.60 in gold or silver, and which to-day commands $6.02 in silver bullion, will bring but $4.70 in gold. A pound of butter that in 1873 brought 18.4 cents in gold or silver, and now commands 20.8 cents in silver bullion, will bring but 16.6 cents in gold. Notwithstanding that 412-1/2 grains of uncoined silver will to-day buy as much of the leading articles of commerce as the coined gold dollar would buy in 1873, yet the advocates of the gold standard characterize it as a 72-cent dollar. Then the gold dollar of 1873 was a 72-cent dollar. If the gold dollar of to-day be an honest and equitable dollar, that of 1873, which was worth much less, was a swindling and dishonest one; and if gold continues to advance as it has been advancing, and with the declining output of that metal there is no reason why it should not, it will be but a short time before any other kind of dollar whose value may be equal to that of the present gold dollar will be stigmatized as a swindling 72-cent dollar. There never was a dollar coined that did not legally and practically contain 100 cents. But the creditors stigmatize a dollar of the value of the gold and silver dollar of 1873 as a 72-cent dollar. May not the debtors, with much more propriety, denounce the gold dollar of to-day as a 140-cent dollar? According to the admissions of the royal commission of England, the gold dollar of to-day is to the producers of this country, measured by their products, already at a premium of between 30 and 40 per cent. over the gold dollar of 1873. The advocates of the gold standard have no sympathy with our farmers and manufacturers who have to pay, in commodities, a premium of 30 to 40 per cent. on gold, to meet their engagements, but express extreme anxiety at the bare possibility that a few importers might have to pay even a small premium in any form. They insist that the money system of a population of 65,000,000, shall, like an inverted pyramid, be made to rest upon its apex in order to enable a few importers, most of whom are residents of foreign countries, to make their payments abroad in gold. Verily, Mr. President, the single gold standard is an expensive luxury for our people to maintain.