I hope the depression in the price of silver is temporary and that a further trial of this legislation will more favorably affect it.  That the increased volume of currency thus supplied for the use of the people was needed and that beneficial results upon trade and prices have followed this legislation I think must be very clear to everyone.  Nor should it be forgotten that for every dollar of these notes issued a full dollar’s worth of silver bullion is at the time deposited in the Treasury as a security for its redemption.  Upon this subject, as upon the tariff, my recommendation is that the existing laws be given a full trial and that our business interests be spared the distressing influence which threats of radical changes always impart.  Under existing legislation it is in the power of the Treasury Department to maintain that essential condition of national finance as well as of commercial prosperity—­the parity in use of the coined dollars and their paper representatives.  The assurance that these powers would be freely and unhesitatingly used has done much to produce and sustain the present favorable business conditions.

I am still of the opinion that the free coinage of silver under existing conditions would disastrously affect our business interests at home and abroad.  We could not hope to maintain an equality in the purchasing power of the gold and silver dollar in our own markets, and in foreign trade the stamp gives no added value to the bullion contained in coins.  The producers of the country, its farmers and laborers, have the highest interest that every dollar, paper or coin, issued by the Government shall be as good as any other.  If there is one less valuable than another, its sure and constant errand will be to pay them for their toil and for their crops.  The money lender will protect himself by stipulating for payment in gold, but the laborer has never been able to do that.  To place business upon a silver basis would mean a sudden and severe contraction of the currency by the withdrawal of gold and gold notes and such an unsettling of all values as would produce a commercial panic.  I can not believe that a people so strong and prosperous as ours will promote such a policy.

The producers of silver are entitled to just consideration, but they should not forget that the Government is now buying and putting out of the market what is the equivalent of the entire product of our silver mines.  This is more than they themselves thought of asking two years ago.  I believe it is the earnest desire of a great majority of the people, as it is mine, that a full coin use shall be made of silver just as soon as the cooperation of other nations can be secured and a ratio fixed that will give circulation equally to gold and silver.  The business of the world requires the use of both metals; but I do not see any prospect of gain, but much of loss, by giving up the present system, in which a full use is made of gold and a large use of silver, for one in which