Hawke's Bay Herald. SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 1895. A CONCESSION OF FAITH

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 10017, 15 June 1895, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Herald. SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 1895. A CONCESSION OF FAITH

The other d»y we gave some oxtiaotß from n speech. oa blmetnlllatu delivered before a London audience by the Hon, A. J. Bulfour, M,P. The gathering Iccln'dod niauy of the leading financiers of tho day, among them being Mr Lldderdale, Governor of the Bank of Kugland, Mr H. li.

I Grenfell, the ex-Governor, and the Hod. I Evelyn Hubbard, one of the present I directors, and Mr Leonard Courtanoy, I who at the last Brnssels Conference was | the British champion of monometallism All of them were, in lact, monometmllists until they came to study the sabject. Mr Habbard thus told how his eyes were opened bit by bit :— " I started heavily weighted with the opioion that legislation coald never possibly fix the relative I price of two commodities which vary in I supply. I have become aware that biI metalllsm Involves the regulation, not of I price, bat of ratio, and that what was I possible to the Latin Union cannot be I impossible tv Europe and the United I States. I imagined that even were a I ratio fixed by law between gold and I Bllver, the market price mnst inevitably ! I vary from the legal ratio in accordance I with the increase or decrease In the I prodnotlon of either meta 1 . I dlsI covered that this is nob a matter of argn,, I ment, but of history — that the record I of the years 1849-52 has furnished the j mnst conclusive demonstration of the I power of the ratio to keep the price I steady, even In the face of the most I violent fluctuation in sapply. I enterI talned ft vßgnn, yet firm, impression that I the commercial snpremncy of England I was largely attvibn table to her gold I standard. I find that Engi&pd was both I nominally and practically bimetallic up I to the end of Ust century, that she I enjoyed ell the advantages of bimetallism up to 1573, and that It is only during the last twenty years of falling prices and depressed trade that she has been striolly monometallic. I was haunted by the vision of my debts being pressed on my acceptance at inconvenient moments in the form of cumbrous barrowfuls of silver. I have become aware that under bimetallism, debts will be paid as they are now, by cheque or bills ot exchange, and that under no circuraßtancea are we likely to receive payments before they are due. Again, the insular argn. ment was not without weight. England, it was urged, Is a great creditor conntry ; all the world is indebted to her in sterling. If gold is appreciating, bo much the better for us. Why should we not leave well alone? Tbis particular millstone, however, fell from my neck the first. It requires little consideration to see that It is not only essentially immoral, bnt also self ■ destructive. If gold appreciate^ your gold Btandard stlnds condemned by failure in the most essential attrlbnte— that of stability ; while yon are convioted 1 of mulcting your debtor, not only of the j interest which he agreed to pay, bnt also of the unearned increment, the increase of purchasing power, which your car I rency has acquired by lapse of time," These words should at least arrest the attention ot those opponents of the reform who scoff at bi-raetalllem as an Itnprao i ticable fad.