I wish in all solicitude and sincerity to advise my Republican friends of the East that this plank in the party platform was construed by the Republicans of the West to mean precisely what it says. They are looking with confidence to this Congress for such action as will fittingly embody in the statutes the principle laid down by the party now in the responsible direction of the Government.
SHALL WE BE FLOODED WITH SILVER?
We are told that if silver is given free access to the mints we shall be flooded with it from all parts of the world. Does anybody show where the flood of silver is to come from? Where are the reservoirs that contain it? Not in England, where it is difficult for the people even to get a sufficiency of it for small change to transact the business of the country: not in Germany, where the scarcity of money was so pressing that the government had to abandon the idea of selling silver. Though the stock in France is large her people will never give it up. Silver has been the "shield and buckler" of the French Republic. All she has is coined at the ratio of 15½ ounces of silver to 1 of gold, and its shipment to this country would involve a loss to France, not only of the 3 per cent. difference between the French relation (15½ to 1) and ours (which is 16 to 1), but of 3 per cent. additional in the cost of gathering and shipping it. And after that could only exchange them for Treasury notes. The silver stock in India and the Orient is performing indispensable duty as money, and no "flood" of it can be expected from that quarter. From time immemorial India has been absorbing all the surplus silver of the world. She has never got so much as to appease her appetite for more. So insatiable is her desire for that metal that she has long been known as the "Sink of Silver." China has not a piece of the metal that she can dispose of. Mexico has no stock whatever of silver on hand, except the limited number of coined pieces forming her moderate money circulation, and not a dollar of it can be spared. No country of Central or South America has any surplus silver. Every piece of coined silver in every country in the world is part of the monetary circulation of that country, and even when of short weight and classified as a mere "token" is passing at par as full valued money. No gain could possibly accrue, therefore, to the owners of coined silver anywhere by shipping it to this country for any purpose, and there is no surplus stock of bullion anywhere.
If anybody doubts this statement let him make the attempt in all the money centers of the world to buy from accumulated stock even $5,000,000 worth of it. He will fail to get it in London, Paris, Berlin, Calcutta, New York, or San Francisco, or in all combined. There is no source from which to get silver except the current supply from the mines, and whatever that is now it is not likely ever greatly to increase. The occupation of mining is not attractive to many, and in the nature of the case the number who follow it will always be comparatively few. The Argonauts of old were but a small band of hardy adventurers; those of the new era are destined to bear no larger proportion to the population. But even were this not so, nature herself draws the line. To the eye of the experienced prospector silver mines are as discernible on the surface of the earth as are mountains, and the world has been explored in vain for further "finds." Those who talk, therefore, of "floods" of silver coming here for coinage simply show their ignorance of existing conditions.
I may add that of all the shafts that have been sunk for silver mines in the world where they have found silver croppings on top in ninety-nine out of every hundred, and I think I am stating it moderately, the veins have not penetrated the earth, mineralized, fertilized, to the depth of 50 feet, rarely have they penetrated the earth to a depth exceeding 1,200 feet, and the most prolific yield of silver mines has been from a depth not exceeding 800 feet.
The very fact, Mr. President, that, with all the world searching for gold and silver mines—a search that has continued throughout all history—the amount of the two metals yielded by the mines is about equal, shows that the historical relation existing between them is the relation at which they can be profitably produced.
It is apparent that if there were a great advantage in the production of silver over gold, at the relation of 15½ to 1, that advantage would be seen in the largely preponderant production of silver; but instead we find that the result of thousands of years of mining has given us about equal quantities of both metals.
CAN THE UNITED STATES ALONE HOLD THE METALS AT A PARITY?
We are told that the United States, unaided, can not, if it would, restore silver to a parity with gold—that no one nation acting alone can achieve so difficult a feat. But it is incapable of denial that throughout all vicissitudes of production of gold and silver from 1803 to 1873 the law of France—one nation alone—accomplished it.
As I have shown in greater detail elsewhere, by reference to the table of annual production of the metals, it will be observed that from 1803 to 1820, the production was in the proportion of four dollars of silver to one of gold; from 1821 to 1840 two of silver to one of gold, from 1841 to 1850 one dollar of silver, to one of gold, from 1851 to 1860 four dollars of gold to one of silver, from 1861 to 1865 three of gold to one of silver, from 1866 to 1870 two of gold to one of silver, in 1871 and 1872 one-and-a-half of gold to one of silver. Notwithstanding these extreme variations in the relative annual production the law of France constituted a ligature sufficient to hold the metals in line at the ratio of 15½ to 1, and this not for France alone but for the whole world. If that period does not offer sufficient proof of the power of law, under varying conditions of supply, to tie the metals together and keep them so, no degree of proof will suffice, for the vacillations of their relative production have been greater during this century than at any former period in the history of the world.