If Not Silver, What? by John W. Bookwalter
page 23 of 93 (24%)
page 23 of 93 (24%)
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bushels of wheat; to-day it would take 900,000,000 bushels. In short, the
amount of grain England has made clear because of the rest of the world adopting monometallism would bread all her people, feed all her live stock, and make three gallons of whiskey for every person on the island. Why shouldn't they take what the world willingly gives them? I have my opinion, however, of the common sense of a world which does things that way. =We want money that is equally good all over the world.= There is no such money. The coin we send abroad is only bullion when it gets there, and most dealers prefer government bars. The exchange must be calculated exactly the same whether we use gold, silver, or paper in our domestic trade; and this notion that we "should be at a disadvantage in the exchange" is a delusion. The variations in the value of the greenback during our war era were calculated daily, and prices in this country rose or fell to correspond. It must, I say, be calculated just the same in gold or silver, and any smart schoolboy can do it in a minute on any transaction. =What I mean is that the silver dollar is worth only 50 cents in gold.= And by the same token the gold dollar is worth 200 cents in silver. The answer is as logical as the quip, and neither is worth notice. Such a process merely assumes an arbitrary standard and measures all other things by it, as the drunkard in a certain stage of intoxication thinks that his company is drunk while he is duly sober. And, by the way, where do you get your moral right to say that a dollar which will buy two bushels of wheat |
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