d

they are entirely right and that their opponents are entirely wrong. Neither side will admit the possibility of a via media, and those who talk of compromise are anathematised equally by both sides.

A few words on each of these points :

1. It would seem to be a peculiarity of the money question that those who argue about it always adopt, more or less, those methods of argument which are said to be popular in the fish market at Billingsgate. The regular thing in this country now is for the Silver men to talk of the advocates of the single gold standard as criminals who have conspired together for the purpose of imposing the yoke of Wall Street upon the necks of the American people; while the Gold men answer by calling the Silver men knaves, and swindlers, and fools, and idiots, and so forth; and the amusing part of it is that we frequently find the advocates of one side protesting earnestly against the use of strong language on the other side, and then following up this protest with a perfect volley of abuse against their opponents. When will the disputants, and more especially the newspapers, realise the fact that this controversy has passed out of the stage at which it can be settled, or any good be effected, by calling hard names? The mere fact that there are numbers of men of the highest intelligence and of undoubted honesty on each side ought to be enough to convince us that the question is one of great complexity on which there is still room for honest and intelligent difference of opinion.

2. Closely connected with, and indeed largely causing, the peculiarity last noticed is the singular confidence of absolute rightness and infallibility which characterises the utterances on either side. As I have said, this is a question of enormous complexity about which men of the highest capacity, who have made a special study of the subject, are still at variance. But to read the Gold papers in this country one would conclude that no man who was not a born idiot could see any merit on the Silver side. And to read the Silver papers one would suppose that no man not a fit subject for the penitentiary could advocate the single gold standard.

In regard to the points which are most commonly argued in this controversy, a man of a judicial turn of mind, who approaches the question without prejudices of any kind, will almost certainly conclude that there is a good deal to be said on both sides,' and that the right lies somewhere between the two. To illustrate this by a few examples.

The point about which the controversy rages most fiercely is the question as to what would be the effect on the purchasing power of the silver dollar if this country were to throw open its mints to silver at the ratio of sixteen to one with gold. At present, as your readers know, the silver dollar of the United States has a purchasing power equal to nearly double the bullion value of the silver contained in it. Of course, if silver were admitted to free coinage, the bullion value

and the coin value could not keep apart in this way. They would have to come together somewhere. The great question at issue is— where would they come together? The Silver men say that this country alone, by opening its mints to silver at the ratio of sixteen to one with gold, and making the silver dollars unlimited legal tender at that ratio, could fix and maintain that as the ratio of bullion value. In other words, they affirm that the effect of free coinage would be to nearly double the present bullion value of silver relatively to gold.. On the other hand, the Gold men say that free coinage means a fifty cent. dollar, which is the same thing as saying that the adoption of free coinage by this country would not raise the bullion value of silver at all, but would leave it just where it is at present. It is obvious that there is plenty of room for a via media between these two extremes. There is a good deal of difference between doubling the value of silver and not affecting it at all. For my part, I have not the smallest doubt but that, in regard to this question, as in regard to most of the other questions at issue, the truth lies somewhere between the extremes advocated on either side. I do not believe that this country alone could raise the par of exchange to sixteen to one and keep it at that point, but I am quite convinced that the adoption of free coinage by such a country as this would cause a very substantial rise in the bullion value of silver, and that, therefore, the fifty cent. dollar argument, which is constantly dinned into our ears, is wide of the truth. I am not going to argue the question now, but I will merely say that the experience of the past, and more especially the marked effect on the price of silver recently produced by the shutting of the Indian mints, seems to me to make it as certain as anything of the kind can be that the opening of the mints of this country to free coinage would very materially affect the bullion price of silver.

To take another example. Closely connected with the fifty cent. dollar argument is the question of the honesty of free coinage, about which the controversy also rages with great fierceness. On this question the position of the Silver men is that a great wrong was done to the debtor classes by the demonetisation of silver, and the consequent appreciation of gold, and that the restoring of the right of free coinage to silver is the only way by which that wrong can be undone. They will not admit that there is any dishonesty about it. On the contrary, they say the dishonesty is to leave things as they On the other hand, the Gold men use their strongest language on this point. They deny vigorously that any wrong has been done at all, and they say that free coinage would simply mean a wholesale fraud on creditors, and that this is the object which its promoters really have at heart.

are.

Here, again, I think the right lies between the two extremes. If the value of gold relatively to commodities in general has appreciated

during the past twenty years, and if that appreciation of gold has been artificially caused by the action of the governments of the commercial nations in demonetising silver, then most certainly a wrong has been done to debtors precisely similar in kind to the wrong which would now be done to creditors by allowing their debtors to pay them in money having a less purchasing power than the money in which the debts were contracted. On the other hand, it is undoubtedly true that by far the greater part of the private debts at present existing in the country have been contracted within the past few years, and that there has been very little, if any, increase in the purchasing power of gold since these debts were contracted. To allow these debts to be paid in depreciated silver dollars would be clearly and unquestionably dishonest. Because a great wrong has been done to the debtor class in the past, it does not follow that it is just to now do a great wrong to the creditor class. The process of falling prices seems to have spent itself, and it is impossible now to remedy the wrong that was done while that process was going on. The friends of the free coinage of silver would very much strengthen their cause with those people who attach any importance to the honest payment of debts if they would consent to have it provided that, if gold did go to a premium, creditors should be entitled to be paid in gold coin or in the silver equivalent of gold coin of the present weight and fineness.

It would be easy to give other cases in which both sides are wrong and the truth lies between them. I may briefly refer, in closing this part of the subject, to the great controversy as to the sufficiency of the gold supply to form a safe basis for the currency systems of the leading commercial nations. According to the Gold men, it is a complete delusion to suppose that there ever has been any mischief-working scramble for gold, or that any of the evils we have been and are suffering from are in any degree due to an insufficiency of the gold supply for the work it is now called on to do. They hold that the general adoption of the gold standard has been a process of natural selection of the fittest, so to speak, and has been entirely beneficial. Of the Silver men it is enough to say that their view is the diametrical opposite of this in every respect. They -commonly represent the gold standard in their cheap literature as a hideous octopus fastening the deadly grasp of its many arms upon all the quarters of the earth. Both sides are wrong, and it is by no means easy to say which is the furthest from the truth.

War to the knife and no compromise is now the motto of both of the contending parties. While believing, as hinted above, that the extremists on both sides are wrong, and that the right lies between them, I admit that the ferocious and radical character which the conflict has now assumed has its advantages. Whichever systemthe single gold standard or the double standard--may be more in

accordance with the principles of sound finance, there can be no doubt as to the fact that uncertainty as to the standard is ruinous. And this stage of uncertainty as to the standard of exchange value is precisely the condition in which this country has been for the past few years. The result has been hard times, far harder, relatively to the average condition, than the nations of Europe have been having. Nothing but the vast natural resources of the country could have enabled us to live through such a condition of things as well as we have done. It is satisfactory to know that the people are now thoroughly aroused to the desperate need of settling this question one way or the other. Macaulay's line, 'One of us two, Herminius, shall never more go home,' expresses very well the spirit by which both sides now seem to be animated; and there is good reason to hope that, when the ballots have been counted in November, the people will feel that one of the most formidable issues which this Republic has ever had to face is in a fair way of being finally settled.

WILLIAM DILLON.

CHICAGO: July 1896.

1896

THE TRAINING OF A JESUIT

ONE of the curious phenomena of the modern world is the mystery that hangs around the name of Jesuit. There is a general consent that the Jesuits are a body of men who exert a considerable influence in the world. This at least is conceded to them alike by friends and enemies, by Catholics, and by those outside the Catholic Church. But the secret of their influence, the source whence their power arises, is a matter on which the widest possible opinion prevails. While all, or nearly all, attribute to them an unlimited devotion to the cause of Rome, there is a very considerable diversity of opinion as to the means they employ to carry out the end which they have at heart. A large majority of non-Catholics impute to them an unscrupulous readiness to avail themselves of any means, good or bad, by which they think that their cause can be served. Not a few believe them to be a secret and perfectly organised society, ready to occupy any position, or to fill any office, inside or outside the Catholic Church, in which may be seen an opportunity of carrying on their work of unscrupulous propagandism. They are fully convinced that Jesuits are to be found in her Majesty's Service, in the various learned professions, in the commercial classes, among domestic servants and those who labour with their hands, and even in the ranks of the Anglican clergy. Some among the more zealous Protestants believe in the existence of 'female Jesuits,' who, in the garb of domestic servants, nurses, and governesses, find an opportunity of instilling into the minds of the young children committed to their charge the principles of Popery. Even educated men are not wholly free from the curious superstition that the Jesuit in disguise' is to be found everywhere, seeking with unscrupulous perseverance to undermine, by fair means or foul, the foundations of the Protestant Church, and to re-establish the dominion of Rome over the souls of

men.

This belief, like all other popular superstitions, has an element of truth in it. In the days of persecution, when Jesuits were hunted up and down the land, and were mercilessly butchered simply because they were members of the proscribed Society, their only chance of escaping the hands of the pursuivant was to be 'Jesuits in disguise.'