+
561
i
16
whatever name the coins in use here might bear.
Much might be said with regard to the mammer
in which the suggested change in currency would
affect local Companies whose capital is in silver, but this memorandum has already assumed
too great a length.
It is merely necessary therefore to remark
that it would appear little advantage would accrue from converting - some at all events
of the local stocks into gold. If the conversion takes place at the current value of the dollar
If small benefit reverts to the shareholder.
conversion is at an inflated value of the dollar then this is merely a temporary"watering" of stock soon to be adjusted by a correspond ing decrease in the market value of the shares. We must give
the Directors of these local institutions due credit, and suppose that, whether their accounts are presented to their Constituents in Gold or in local currency, they are extracting a good market price for their wares. The prosperity of a Company is be sed upon its earning capabilities and not upon a fictitious and undue value of its stock if converted at anything over the actual
price of the dollar.
With regard to property, loans, mortgages ete Mr.Wilcox is quite correct in stating that these as securities from a sterling point of view have lost through the depreciation of silver He makes no allusion however to the point advanced earlier in the memorandum, that a gold standard