John Silver

“ Long John Silver unearthed a very competent man for a mate, a man named Arrow. ”

“ We wish, say the London bankers, to receive our interest in gold and not in depreciated silver; but silver would not be depreciated the moment an agreement went into effect. Why, you ask, shall we cast such profit into the hands of the owners of silver mines? Remember that you are now casting the same profit into the hands of the owners of gold mines and washings. No man would lose by rehabilitation, and the whole world would be richer.... Europe is laboring under a grave delusion. ”

“ It is sound and stable, while silver fluctuates. See how much more silver an ounce of gold will buy than in 1873, but the gold dollar remains the same, worth its face as bullion anywhere in the world.
But suppose there had been a general demonetization of gold instead of silver, how would the ratio have stood then? Would not the same reasoning prove silver unchangeable, and gold the fluctuating metal?
Oh, nonsense! it is impossible to demonetize gold, because the civilized world recognizes it as an invariable standard by which all commodities are measured in value. ”

“ It is a dream to suppose that gold is stable in value. It is no more stable than silver. It has undergone a considerable appreciation in recent years, and industry and commerce have been more hampered by this movement than they would have been had silver been our standard. Every step taken towards the further demonetization of silver must tend to the enhancement of the value of gold. It is true that much inconvenience is involved in the use of gold as a standard in some countries, and of silver as a standard in others, with no link to check their divergent relations ”

“ The best authorities agree that there is not enough free silver in the world to even fill the place of our gold, which, you say, would be expelled. And right here is where the advocates of the gold standard contradict every well-established principle of political economy, and every lesson of experience, by declaring that the transfer of all our gold to Europe would not cheapen it there, and that free coinage would not increase the value of silver. ”

“ The plain truth of the matter is that the time has come for both gold and silver to increase in purchasing power; but by reason of demonetization almost the entire increase has been concentrated in gold, leaving silver almost stationary as to commodities in general, but somewhat enhanced as to farm products. In the name of common, honesty, is it not a high-handed outrage to make the old debts of that period payable in the rapidly appreciating metal, instead of one that has merely retained its value? ”

“ A silver certificate for $500 weighs less than a gold dollar. In that denomination the Jay Gould estate could be carried by one man.
But silver certificates would not remain at par.
At par with what? Everything in the universe is at par with itself. The volume of certificates issued by the government would be exactly the amount of the metal deposited, and that amount could never be suddenly increased or diminished, for the product of the mines in any one year is very seldom more than three per cent. of the stock already on hand, and half of that is used in the arts. ”

“ During all the years that the law of 1803 was in practical force the variations as shown by a diagram seemed but trifling, despite the enormous over-production of silver for many years and of gold for many other years, and yet, immediately after 1873, although ten years were yet to elapse before the world was to produce silver in excess of gold, almost instantly the diagram shows the downward trend of silver far, far in excess of any previous experience. ”

“ We draw on the future, and in no long time it honors our drafts. Nevertheless, in the twenty-three years since silver was demonetized we have had two grand panics, several minor currency panics, hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies with liabilities of billions, and five labor wars in which 900 persons were killed and $230,000,000 worth of property destroyed. Could a silver basis do worse?
You admit, then, that the immediate adoption of free coinage would, for a while at least, drive gold abroad? ”

“ Had the world continued to use both metals as freely as before, the painful crisis we have passed through would have been much mitigated. But by a suicidal policy silver was cut off at the very time it was most needed, and a double burden thrown upon gold just when it was able to bear only half of its former burden. ”

“ The manufactured articles are worth very much more than the metal in them, to say nothing of the sentimental value. A prize silver cup, for instance, won in a great race or regatta, could not be bought for ten times its weight in gold. There remain, then, only the scrap heap and the stored bullion, and nobody has been able to locate any great mass of it. Is it reasonable to suppose that moneyed men have been storing away silver for years, making no profit on it and losing the interest, and doing it in the face of a falling market? ”

“ No one has done us the good turns Silver has done, and he’s straight. I’d trust him—I’d trust him to the death.”
“Silence!” said Long John.
There was a heavy oak chair at one end of the room. Piper now approached it, seated himself, and looked down the long room. His face was even thinner and more cadaverous than usual, his eyes more luminous, his lips firmer and more cruel. Scrivener watched him [282] in silence; then he went up the room and asked him a question.
“What do you want done,” he said, “with the plate and jewels which we have just taken from Rowton Heights?” ”

“ It is probably not known to one American in a thousand that the practice of inserting a silver clause in contracts became at that time so common in Europe that it was actually transferred to the United States, and in England life insurance companies were established on a silver basis. Several American corporations stipulated for payment in silver, especially of rents, and to this day a New England establishment is receiving a certain number of ounces of fine silver yearly under leases then drawn up. ”

“ But the bullion, the old silver, the scrap heap, will they not ship that to us by billions? Well, how much is there, and where is it? Will the nobility and gentry of Europe melt down their family plate, the plain people everywhere their silver ornaments, and the Hindoos their household gods, to send us the silver? If so, why did they not do it when a cup, a watch, or a silver god would buy twice as much gold as now? ”

“ Thus are we confronted with the truly startling paradox that during all the century and a half when the production of silver was nearly twice that of gold, and the two centuries back of that when it was more than twice, the variation in coinage value never rose to 9 per cent., and for many years at a time corresponded with the ratio set by the mint ”

“ The economy of the world cannot be arbitrarily carried on in the hope that somewhere a new California, and at the same time a new Australia, will be found whose alluvial lands will give relief for a decade. ... The question is no longer whether silver will again become a full value coinage metal over the whole earth, but what are to be the trials through which Europe is to reach that point. ”

“ Some of our statesmen have got themselves into such a condition of mind on this point as to really believe that, while all other products of human labor are changing in value, gold alone is gifted with the great attribute of God—immutability. It is sheer blasphemy. It is conclusively proved, and by many different lines of reasoning, that silver is many times more stable in value than gold. ”

“ We have no time to lose, mates. The police have already got wind of Silver’s identity. Spider has informed me in this note that they identify him with Adrian Rowton, master of Rowton Heights. Before twenty-four hours are over he will be arrested. Now, look here, we arrest him first. You understand, don’t you?”
“Yes,” answered several voices. They were all eager now. Their apathy had vanished.
“We have a wine party here to-morrow night,” said Long John, rising as he spoke. “Scrivener, it will be your duty to bring Silver here as guest. Use fair means to get him to come, if necessary ”

“ Silver will continue to fall in value, as it increases in quantity, the demand not increasing in proportion; for the increase does not depend on the demand. most people won’t allow themselves to think that silver is cheaper or less valuable, tho’ it appears plainly, by comparing what quantity of goods such a weight of fine silver bought 200 years ago, and what quantity of the same goods it will buy now. if a piece of wine in France is equal in value to 20 bolls [Pg 132] of oats there, that quantity of oats can never be worth more or less wine ”

“ The smallness of the annual product relatively to the total quantity existing in the world requires some time, even for a production of silver forty-seven times greater than the gold production, to take its effect on the value of the total silver stock in existence. The effect of this process was beginning to be felt soon after the United States decided on a double standard. ”

“ That the output of one year determined the value of silver as the crop of potatoes does their price for that year! The schoolboy who does not know better deserves the rattan. If the theory were correct, gold in 1856 should have been worth but a fourth what it was in 1848, whereas the largest estimate of its decline in value puts it at 25 per cent. ”

“ The converse of all this would happen if silver, instead of gold, were the metal which had risen in comparative value. A sovereign would not now be worth so much as twenty shillings, and whoever had a pound to pay would prefer paying it by a sovereign; while the silver coins would be collected for the purpose of being melted, and sold as bullion for gold at their real value, that is, above the legal valuation. The money of the community, therefore, would never really consist of both metals, but of the one only which, at the particular time, best suited the interest of debtors ”

“ What has been said, proves, 1st. that silver money is an uncertain value; because lyable to be altered in the fineness or denomination by the prince. A crown has no more silver in it than half a crown or 15 pence had a 150 or 200 years ago.
2dly. That as silver it has fallen from the value it had, the same quantity not being worth the 5th or 10th part of what it was worth then. A moneyed man then worth a 1000 lib. was richer at that time than a landed man of 240 chalder of victual rent: but a man of such a money estate, would not now be worth one 50th part of such a land estate. ”

“ Under a monumental edifice of hair, bristling like a hedgehog with amber-coloured pins and with silver spangles and rosettes, a blank, impassive little face was staring straight in front of it, utterly expressionless, utterly unnatural, hidden beneath the glaze of enamel—the china face of a doll.
It parted the grey multitude like a pillar of light. It tottered forward slowly, for it was lifted above the crowd on a pair of black-lacquered clogs as high as stilts, dangerous and difficult to manipulate. ”

“ Well, we are proceeding upon the theory of the monometallists, that a billion dollars’ worth of silver and securities would be shipped here. We are showing what must inevitably result if their predictions should hold good—more money for the farmers, more business for the merchants, more transportation for the railroads, and more business for their correlated industries; and, as a result, more work, abundant work, for those now idle. ”

“ Scarcely, however, was the great victory won and the great reform inaugurated when it became evident that, owing to the demonetization of silver and increased purchasing power of gold, the tenants were, in reality, bound to much heavier payments than before. Whatever may have been the intent, the tenant, who bound himself to pay a fixed annual sum as rent for a long term of years, found himself bound to deliver a much larger share of produce ”

“ We think that if in all these countries gold and silver could be freely coined and thus become exchangeable against commodities at the fixed ratio, the market value of silver as measured by gold would conform to that ratio and not vary to any considerable extent. ”

“ From these figures it would seem that the trouble, if monometallists are right in saying there is trouble there, is due not to their having too much silver, but that they do not have enough. Not having enough, they have followed the usual course of nations lacking a sufficient coin basis, and have issued a great volume of irredeemable paper money. ”

“ If the example of France and the Netherlands—two of the soundest and most conservative nations in the world—be similarly taken as an index to the probable use of silver, it appears that these two nations average $12.50 per capita. To supply the rest of Europe to the same extent will require an addition of $3,563,000,000 to her present stock of silver, or about three-fourths as much as the present coined silver of the world. ”

“ In the Chewelah district there have recently been found so many rich veins of silver that Mr. E. V. Smalley, who visited it in November, 1885, declares that it is almost certain to become, within a few years, the greatest silver camp on the continent. ”

“ This theory ignores the two most important facts determining the value of money: that the silver or gold mined in any one year is added to the existing stock, to which it is but a minute increase; and that wealth, population, and production are also increasing rapidly, relative to which the increase of silver is but a trifle indeed. The yield of the Monte Real a thousand years ago may have cost five times as much labor per ounce, and that of Laurium ten or even twenty times as much ”