of other leading nations, in fixing upon a common ratio of value between
gold and silver, before embarking upon a course of independent action
from which there could be no retreat. I have also attempted to show
that, even in the lowest pecuniary sense of profit, the Government of
the United States could not be the gainer by proposing to pay either the
public debt or the United States notes in silver; that such a payment
would violate public pledges as to the whole, and violates existing
statutes as to all that part of the debt contracted since 1870, and for
which gold has been received; that the remonetization of silver means
the banishment of gold and our degradation among nations to the second
or third rank; that it would be a sweeping 10 per cent. reduction of
all duties upon imports, requiring the imposition of new taxes to that
extent; that it would prevent the further funding of the public debt at
a lower rate of interest and give to the present holders of our 6 per
cent. bonds a great advantage; that, instead of aiding resumption, it
would only inflate a currency already too long depreciated, and consign
it to a still lower deep; that, instead of being a tonic to spur idle
capital once more into activity, it would be its bane, destructive of
all vitality; and that as a permanent silver standard it would not
only be void of all stability, and the dearest and clumsiest in its
introduction and maintenance, but that it would reduce the wages of
labor to the full extent of the difference there might be between its
purchasing power and that of gold.




JAMES G. BLAINE,

OF MAINE. (BORN 1830, DIED 1893.)