ONE ASPECT OF THE SILVER QUESTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14382, 27 November 1908, Page 10

ONE ASPECT OF THE SILVER QUESTION

Mr Morton Frewen, the London financial expert, wJio visited Now Xeaiand somo years ago and lectured in D.uncdiai on the currency .'question, recently granted a special interview with the Vancouver New-. Advertiser, .in 'whicn lie dealt, with matters of exchange, gold and silver basic and relative Values, a.nd their cftcet upon t)io commerce of the world. Introducing tho' subject, tho reporter said:' . .. ' "Mr Frcwcn, we in Canada are aware that you have given your attention for .many years to the silver question, and especially, as cheaper ; silver affects our trade with the Orient; will you tell us tho points which are at present of interest to our people?" In reply Mr .Frewen said: " For. some years I have turned my back upon this mcst troublesome problem, thinking that the great, supplies of gold would settle it; whereas it now appears that so far from settling tho question the great gold supplies. and the consequent rise in all pricra is making the silver question more ominous of disaster than ever' before. Since 1836 we gold standard communities have had a great rise of gold prices, occasioned by tho abundant supplies of tl)e' new gold; but prices and wages in silverusing Asia have not risen. They have actually fallen. The result is ,that .tho fall in the price of silver—in other words tlm fall in the rate of exchange with all Asia,—is stimulating all the manufactures and the exports to us from Atjia with her eight hundred millions of people, and is contracting her imports from us. If joit pcoplo at tho Pacific ports ever expect to have profitable export trade to Asia, tlio price of silver will .have first to rise to at least a dollar, an ounce." "Please explain that statement more fully." '' Well, I will put it this way: China today stands waiting to buy millions of torn of steel rajls for a complete system ot railways, or it may. bo om cottons, or your wheat or your lumber, but how can tho Chinaman buy? He says: 'I have been absorbing or hoarding silver for two thousand years; 6tlver is my money. Before I can buy your rails I must fust buy v.ou.r money, and with that money pay for your rails. Thirty years ago four and a-half of my silver dollars or taels bought a sovereign, but now it takes 12 taels to buy a sovereign. So you have lost my business; my wages are no higher, the price of the commodities I produce are no higher in silver; then how can I pay nearly threo times as much for a bill of oxohangQ on London or New York as I paid before 1873?' This is why the great fall in silver exchange last year has so dislocated the trade of Europe and America with Asia, and your people here can never trado with Asia to any profit, until the exchanges riso very considerably." "Then/ 1 said the reporter, "the question of silver is reallv a great, race problem, and it requires, in your opinion, tho attention of the Western rowel's?" "Exactly," said Mr Frewen, "and I believe this "view has at last broken in upon our statesmen. At Washington they have selected a commission and arc co s-end a sub-cominittec to inquire into wages wid

prices in Ohina and India. Already Secre-' 1 tai-y Root has sent a circular to all American consuls in Asia. In England I believe i wc are to have another Royal Commission ; on -currency.' Speaker Roerf phrased it very ; happily ,in 1891, when hesai<l: ' The yellow ' man willi <hn white mbney will cut tho', throat of the white mnn with tho.yelliw money.' Jf..the exchanges with Asia re- • main where they are now you will see an cuonriious development. in China of the stool ; and ir6n industries. Men now living may witness groat, exports of Chinese steel from Shansi. How, indeed, can it bo otherwise? ' Already thousands' of factories which recently employed white labour in Kuropo • Ave closed and have been reopened with' yellow -labour in Asia. Before 1873 a 6ovc- , reign was worth nearly five silver dollars, . and five, fiilvor dollars in OliJna paid the 'wages for one day of' 20. Chinamen. But' to-day a sovereign is worth not five hut nearly 13 dollars, and as wages in Ohina have not risen, the sovereign, when exchanged Jor silver, .now pays the wages for ono day of 60 Chinamen.' Is that a condi-' lion.of .competition, which Freetrader ever contemplated?. It is little wonder that wo in. England are sick to death of the very phrase' 'Frcotradc.'" , Mr Frewou believes frankly that the whole problem can be solved, and intimates that steps aro being taken by England, and America, to agree on a universal 'standard of silver values.