uselessness of further attempts at present to arrive at any agreement on
the subject with other nations.

In the meantime we are accumulating silver coin, based upon our own
peculiar ratio, to such an extent, and assuming so heavy a burden to be
provided for in any international negotiations, as will render us an
undesirable party to any future monetary conference of nations.

It is a significant fact that four of the five countries composing the
Latin Union mentioned in our coinage act, embarrassed with their silver
currency, have just completed an agreement among themselves that no more
silver shall be coined by their respective Governments and that such as
has been already coined and in circulation shall be redeemed in gold
by the country of its coinage. The resort to this expedient by these
countries may well arrest the attention of those who suppose that we
can succeed without shock or injury in the attempt to circulate upon
its merits all the silver we may coin under the provisions of our
silver-coinage act.

The condition in which our Treasury may be placed by a persistence in
our present course is a matter of concern to every patriotic citizen who
does not desire his Government to pay in silver such of its obligations
as should be paid in gold. Nor should our condition be such as to oblige
us, in a prudent management of our affairs, to discontinue the calling
in and payment of interest-bearing obligations which we have the right
now to discharge, and thus avoid the payment of further interest
thereon.

The so-called debtor class, for whose benefit the continued compulsory
coinage of silver is insisted upon, are not dishonest because they are