shall convince their silver-loving constituents at home that its coin their silver at the mints of Mexico and pay its Government advocates are at heart the friends of silver, which shall couple 4.40 per cent, or they must pay the Government 2 per cent duty with seigniorage that grotesque suggestion of the President in for exporting it. his veto messige, that if the Congress of the United States | would let the Government borrow what money it wanted on its Interest-bearing bonds, then the country could afford a further issue of silver money which requires no redemption, except sil- ver itself.
The Republic of Mexico produces some $50,000,000 annually in silver. Of this amount some $5,000,000 or more are exported in bullion in small amounts to meet the local demands of trade and commerce. Some $20,000,000 of the product of Mexico goes in matte to the grant refineries of Swansea, in England, and is there coined.
Such a suggestion, Mr. President, is too paitry to be fairly considered. If we are to have bonds, let us meet a bond issue It is within my memory, Mr. President, when no dollar of sil like men. I for one need no sop thrown to me of a seigniorage ver was ever produced in this country to any commercial extent. bill in consideration that I shall give the Secretary of the Treas Since that time, in the last twenty years, we have built our re- nry my vota to issue unlimited bonds to meet unknown and un- fineries, built of our smelting works, we have adopted different certain deficits. We will cross that stream when we reach ít. processes, and we now smelt our silver into bullion, but $20,000,-
This resolution, then, is not introduced because it has any re-00 of the product of Mexico still goes to England in the form of lation whatever with the future of the silver question in the matte, United States. It has no sort of connection with the great princi- ple of bimetallism.
China, like all other nations doing business on a silver basis, and owing no debts the principal and interest of which are pay able in gold, is in a most prosperous and happy condition, with a rapidly increasing commerce and largely increasing exports. | There has not been a period in the history of that nation when its internal affairs and its foreign commercs were in as good a condition us now. That condition has been largely facilitated by the attitude of Great Britain toward India, to which I shall hereafter refer, but it is a fact that the trade of China, internal and with the outer world, was never as prosperous as now.
That country, with its population of upwards of 400,000,000, is dominated by precedent; its methods of agriculture, of manu | facture, and of transportation have remained unchanged through all the centuries. When she rat opened her ports unwillingly to foreign nations the Mexican dollar was adopted as the stand- ard of value and its adoption has remained unchanged. Almost every other nation of the world has endeavored to introduce its dollars in competition with the Mexican dollar, and has failed. The English Government for a time, at Hongkong, started the coinage of a British dollar, and coined some 10,000,000 of them. Some of them were used in circulation, somo of them as buttous, as bangles, and ne ornaments; but they made no general impresa upon the country, and their coinage was withdrawn.
The French nation commenced the coinage of a dollar with which to transact its commercial business with China, but it was compelled to withdraw it.
The Japanese Government now coins its yeu, with not quite so much silver in it as had the Mexican dollar. It has also something of a circulation, but an extremely limited circulation,
in China.
Our trade dollar, of which we issued some $35,000,000, never became general in use throughout the Chinese Empire.
The Senator from Ohio [Mr. SHERMAN] inadvertently made a suggestion the other day which is not in accordance with the fact, that the Chinese Government stamped the "yen" upon the coin, and it then became currency. The "you" is the name of the Jap inese coin. It was the custom at the time our trade dol- lar was introduced in China for each business house receiving a dollar to stamp its "chop" or business mark or device upon the dollar, and then it would circulate to the next business house, which, in turn, would stamp its "chop" or mark upon it.
After circulating a few times, it would become defaced, dis- figured, and Hght in weight, when it would be rejected by the banks, and after its rejection by the banks it would be coined into bullion. The bullion afterwards found its way into India or was hoarded, as was the custom in those years, as among the assots of the retiring Chinese merchants who were in the habit of running their silver into bullion and preserving it as part of their treasure or assets or fortune, but in all those attempts nothing has taken the place of the Mexican dollar. The Mexi- can Government started to change the emblem on its dollar, but that change was unacceptable to the Chinese Government, and the old Mexican dollar still stands as the sandard of circulation in that country.
Disraeli has said that every precedent embalmed a principle; sad it may be, Mr. President, that back of this precedent, which seems to us meaningless, the fact that while other countries coined a dollar for foreign circulation only, the Mexican Gov- ernment has issued to China, no dollar which it repudiates at home, may have had much to do with the fact that the Mexican dollar has remained the standard. This Mexican dollar is a dollar of 377 grains fine. known as the dollar marked with the cactus, the eagle, and snake.
To meet this universal demand, the Mexican mints are more than overcrowded. The Mexican Government charges a seign- lorage of 4.40 per cent on every dollar which it coins. It charges an export duty of 2 per cent on all silver exported from the country. So that those producing silver in Mexico must either
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The capacity of the Mexican mints is but twenty-five to twenty- six million dollars. Of this amount of twenty-five or twenty-six million dollars but 81,000,000 stays in the Republic of Mexico; all the rest of it is imported. The exportation is almost entirely to Japan, India, and other parts of Asia. Of this export about $7,500,000 on an average for the last ten years goes by way of San Francisco, a little less amount goes by way of England, from Liverpool and London, direct to Asia and the rest of it probn- bly goes abroad in the pockets of returning Chinamen or through Chilean or Peruviau ports. Of the amount that is coined there is already, owing to this demand, not only a scarcity of Mexican dollars, but a scarcity of silver in Mexico for coinage purposes. I saw in one of yesterday's newspapers, the New York Tribune, I believe it was, & talogram from Boston saying:
A dispatch to the Herald from the City of Mexico says: "Silver bars re- fined in the United States from Mexican ore are arriving here for coinage into dollars. Eighty-eight bars have been received, and more are expected. German bullion dealers are talking of sending bar silver here for the same purpose, owing to the increasing demand for Mexican dollars in China, where à scanty supply has bindered trade operations.'
The fact that the supply is insufficient is shown not only by the importation of silver into Mexico for the purpose of being coined, but it is also shown by the fact that certain quantities, not large, of bullion are exported to China.
We hear much of Chinese mints. There is a mint at Shang- hai known as the Royal Chinese Mint. Its business, its sur- roundings are all shrouded in the greatest mystery. It is in the hands of local mandarine under some contract with the Govern- ment. Our cousul made a report upon it last year. The only information he could obtain was that there were coined in the mint about 3,000,000 ounces of silver, and out of that amount there were 10,000,000 ten-cent pieces, which were utilized prin- cipally by the natives as buttons. The coinage of the Chinese mint, however, amounts practically to nothing.
China produces no silver. This bullion goos to China bocause there are not Mexican dollars enough to do the business, and it is from the fact that Mexican dollars in London and la New York bring a premium from a half per cent to 3 per cent; that the demand is for the Mexican dollar, and the supply is insufficient. The effect of the enlargement of the facilities of Mexico in the coinage of its dollars must be to enlarge our commerce as well as to facilitate the world's commerce with China.
Mr. HIGGINS. Will the Senátor answer a question at that point?
Mr. WOLCOTT. With pleasure.
Mr. HIGGINS. I ask if the premium on Mexican dollars is not owing to the Chinese demand?
Mr. WOLCOTT. It is owing to the Chinese demand-not the Indian, but the Asiatic demand for dollars.
Mr. HIGGINS. They are not to be used in this country? Mr. WOLCOTT. They are wholly for shipment to Asía. Our commerce with China is already great. Our exports to China last year were 83,900,000; our imports were upwards of $20,000,000; of which sum $5,000,000 were dutiable and some $15,- 000,000 were free.
If these dollars shall be coined at our mints at Carson City and at San Francisco, it will create something of an active sil- ver market on the Pacific coast, and where the dollars are the facilities for shipment and commerce will go also. There will be a demand for these dollars from London merchants and from English and from Scotch merchants. They willeend gold to this country in exchange for the dollars which will be shipped direct, and it will add much to the steamship commerce between the Pacific coast and Asia. Many of these dollars will find their way into the Indian market. They are handy: they will up country be romelted and made into bangles and ornaments. There is always a certain demand in India also for Mexican dollars.
The total commerce of China has of late years assumed enor- mous importance. Her foreign commerce last year consisted of £27,000,000 of imports and £25,030,000 of exports. These ex- ports are rapidly increasing in volume and in value and are very
much facilitated, as I have said, by the action of England to ward her colonies in India.
The attitude of Great Britain is most pregnant with interest in this country, for no matter what may be our legislation, the attitude of Great Britain toward India, the prices at which her wheat and jute and cotton are to be sold, the facilities of the ex- chango into English money, must ever materially affect the prices of those products in this country which wo raise in com- petition with that great people.
present policy which Great Britain is following towards India. She is animated naturally by her own selfish interest. alike, and whatever we can do to upbuild the commerce of Asia The products of India and the products of China are much at the expense of the commerce of India must be to our adw tage as showing England where her interests lie.
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We are met with the threat that England may sell her silver bullion on baud. It has been recently suggested by the English The silver difficulty in India which has followed from the sliver, which England bas on hand in India may be sold. If that press that the 20 crores of bullion, or the 80,000,000 ounces of closing of the Indian mints is of this nature: The Indian gov- unfortunate occurrence should take place, there is no doubt that ernment collects its revenue in silver rupees; the revenue col the price of silver would be further depreciated; there is no lected since last June and remaining in the treasury amounts to doubt that it would add to the already untold disasters which some 20 crores of rupees-in other words, to some 80,000,000 | bave overtaken the world because of the abandonment of silver; ounces of silver. There are soine 4,000,000 ounces to the crore. but I venture the prediction that England will never take that The crore is an East Indian word signifying 10,000,000, and step, for when she does that she makes valueless hundreds and 10,000,000 rupees mean something over 4,000,000 ounces of silver. thousands of millions of dollars of bonds, the principal and in- These 30,000,000 ounces of silver are now locked up in the English terest of which are payable in gold, which silver-using countries treasury in Indis, making a scarcity of actual rupees for com- have borrowed of her. Let her sell her silver on hand in Indla merce in India.
Now, the demand for these rupees, through sales of so-called every silver-using country on earth repudiate evory gold pay- and add another attempt to degrade the metal, and you will find "council drafts" in London, is the demand of English import- ment it owes; and 90 per cent of those payments are due to Great ers of Indian wheat, cotton, and jute, who require silver rupoes Britain. to pay for their purchases from Indian farmers. But the gov ernment of India by closing the mints has said: "You can not any longer pay rupees by buying silvor from America, or else where and coloing it in Bombay, therefore you must now buy these rupees from our government treasuries, and at whatever price we fix. True, the value of the silver in the rupee is now only 22 cents per rupee, but we will not sell our coins, our coun- cil drafts, for less than 28 coats per rupee; either take them at that price or leave and go out of business. This result has fol- lowed from this policy of coercion. China, for example, is get ting silver-is getting Mexican dollars-for what she sells in Europe at their bullion value, but the Indian exporter is finding that the present artificially high price charged by the govern- ment of India for the rupee is giving the China exporter a great advantage he never got before.
Let me illustrate this point carefully. In India the govern- ment has fixed the value of the rupos at 28 cents, while the value of a corresponding weight of allver in China, say two-fifths of an ounce, is 23 cents. Now, if we suppose 1 pound of tea in India costs i rupee, then the Indian grower can sell some 17 pounds of tea for the gold sovereign. But the Chinaman can afford to sell 23 pounds of tea for the sovereign. As this argument ap- plies to most of India's exports, the balance of trade since the closing of the mints has gone strongly against India, and is greatly favoríng China; and just as the rise in the Indian rates of exchange and the fall in the China rates has thrown the bal- ance of trade against India and is favoring China, so also the fall in the rate of exchange between the silver-using countries and Europe since 1873 has tended to destroy our favorable balance of trade with gold-using Europe, by stimulating the trade in wheat and cotton from Asia at the expense of our exports of these staples.
Great Britain and by this country by selling silver in bulk, of The question of the production of silver le not to be settled by by attempting to further degrade and dishonor it. Many of us have taken the position here on the floor of the Senate for years, that even if we rehabilitated silver and restored the old fres coinage at the ratio of 16 to 1, the production of ailver would not be increased. We have said that the rise in prices, the rise in wages, the limited and narrowing area for the discovery and development of silver mines, would prevent in any evont the further and larger development and output of silver ores. Mr. President, there has lately been borne in upon us a difer- But, ont condition of facts.
We now face another proposition. Every one of these esti- mates has been based upon the assumption that silver alone de- previated. But one lesson that we are painfully and slowly, but surely, learning to-day, is that not only has the price of silver depreciated or the price of gold appreciated, but that wages are decreasing, that the cost of the necessaries of life is decreasing, that the food the miner eats and the clothes he wears are grow ing less in oost, that the cost of machinery for the development of mines is less, that the cost of making roads is less, that the traffic upon the railroads will bear less, and out of the misery of it all there must come the inevitablo fact that, as silver declines in value, so men with mouths to feed will be found to produce it for less wages.
Our furnaces are cold, our fires are out, our mines are most of them closed; those which are kept open are kept open in order to prevent the timbers from rotting and the waters from flood- ing the mines; yet when these minera-intelligent men who have up to this time found work at prices which remunerated them and enabled them to add to the glory of American manhood, to educate their children, to feed them and to own their own homes-find that the monetary policy of this country prevents their receiving these wages, and that it is starvation or noth-
So, following this, I desire to call the attention of the Senate briefly to an Indian opinion as to the effect which is being pro duced in India by the floundering policy of the English Governing, we shall inevitably find that silver will continue to be pro- ment towards India. I read very briefly from some recent reduced at some price. marks by Hoa. Robert Steel, who is the commercial member of Great Britain, with the United States attending upon its pol- the viceroy's council in India. In an address which he deliv-icy, seems willing to destroy four thousand millions of existing ered at the meeting of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce he says:
Wo may now judge of the result of the closing of the mints. The secre tary of state can not self his council bills. The balance of trade bas disap- peared. Exchange to falling, and there seems to be no chance of the dowir Ward course being arrested until we reach the metallo value of the rupse. Money is at 0 per cent, and may go much higher, but the exchange banks. in View of the further expected fall in exchange, will not bring out one rupee more than the amount they absolutely require to pay for the bills they have bought By the presence of dear money and the prospect of still dearer money trade is paralyzed. The fact is that the action of government in Closing the mints has caused silver to fall to a lower point than it otherwise Would have done, and yet it appears that whether the minis ue closed or open there is no chance that council bilis can be sold on the scale of our re- quirements until exchange reaches the bullion point.
silver coinage in order that it may prevent the output of about one hundred millions of silver a year available for coinage. They are waiting for a river to run by that will be fed by the eternal spring of man's necessities. As you degrade silver you degrade American manhood, American wages, American labor. American prices; but you will find that silver will continue to be produced as long as that metal is found within the bowels of mother earth.
This resolution, Mr. President, may come to nothing, but it is worth the trying, and out of the general impoverishmont and stagnation which prevail throughout this country, I, for one, am glad to seek even some small measure of relief from coun- tries whose faith in silver has never wavered, and whose people are prosperons and bappy, because they bave clung to the white metal through evil as well as through good report.
If no other Senator desires to speak to the resolution, I trust it may be put upon its passage.
Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. President, I do not intend to partici-
Our trade is paralyzed" in the hope of relieving the embarrassments of government, and yet the departure from a sound currency system is mak- fug the position of governinent worse than it was before. The present course can not bo peršavered in long. We can not go on borrowing gold and Leaping up money in our treasuries here Thekday of reckoning must come, and can not be fae of. We in English starestnon are already pressing the Duanswerable charge that the Indian Government has entered into a gigantic speculation in silver. This is serious enough in itself, hut when it appears that the speculation is certain to be a losing one, the clamor against it willpate in any debate on this question, because I am inclined to be irresistible. What then must be done? We are, perhaps, on the eve of a crists which may give a terrible shock to industry, to commerce, and to credit. We can not prosper withouta sound currency acting automatically. Let us open our mints, and we shall again see a wave of prosperity flowing ever the land like that which followed in gold-wing countries the discoveries of gold in California and Australia fifty years ago.
This, Mr. President, is an intelligent Indian opinion of the
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think that the passage of the resolution and the undertaking by the President of the United States to negotiate some measure of relief to silver would be at this time a wise measure to pass. I certainly would favor any proposition which would tend to give silver a larger use for commercial or financial purposes. It would be a great benefit to the human race, it would be of vast
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