BIMETALLISM.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9835, 18 September 1897, Page 9

BIMETALLISM.

TO TKK EDITOR OF THE PRESS. Sir, —The United States Currency Commission are, it appears by tolegram from London, to ask the Australasian colonies to open mints for the free coinage of silver if (Ah ! that little word " if ") an international agreement is come to on the basis of a ratio of 15& to 1. With silver falling day by day until it has got below two shillings per ounce, and with, the increased output of gold, the prospects of bimetallism must, one would imagine, be becoming desperate. One ounce of gold will make four sovereigns, and four sovereigns will purchase forty ounces of silver at two shillings per ounce. The real ratio of the value therefore betweeu gold and silver is 40 to 1, not to 1. Again, forty ounces of silver costing four pounds will make 200 shillings; whereas eighty shillings are all that we get, or that it is proposed to give. Silver coins are, therefore, mere tokens, worth far less than one half of their face value. Of all the extraordinary proposals of modern time 3 bimetallism is an utterly false basis and is the mo3t illogical and absurd. If bimetallism is to be adopted it should be on the actual ratio of values at the time the change is made, i.c, 40 to 1. On this, the only true footing, all silver coins would be much more than double their present size.

To put it another way, we may say the same amount of human labour at present is expended in getting each of the following :— One ounce of gold, forty ounces of silver, four tons of coal, or three quarters of wheat. And these items are roughly interchangeable at those proportions. Bimetallism selects oae of these, silver, and says instead of giving forty ounces of silver we will only give fifteen and a half. It would be equally as logical for countries yielding large quantities of coal to say " iuatead of giving four tons of coal we shall only give about a ton and a half," or for a great wheat-growing country to say instead of three quarters of wheat we shall only give a little more than one quarter. This would be on all fours with bimetallism.—Youra, &c. Q.E.D.