by the United States acting apart from other governments. There are those who think that it has already gone beyond the limit of financial prudence. Surely we can go no further, and we must not permit falsa lights to lure us across the danger line. WE HAVE MORE SILVER THAN OTHER COUNTRIES. We have much more silver in use than any country in the world •except India or China—$500,000,000 more than Great Britian; $150,- *000,000 more than France: $400,000,000 more than Germany; $325,000^- O00 less than India, and $125,000,000 less than China. The Republican Party has declared in favor of an international agreement, and if elected President it will be my duty to employ all proper means to promote it. The free coinage of. silver in this country would defer, if not defeat, international bimetallism, and until an international agreement can be had every interest requires us to maintain our present standard. Independent free coinage of silver at a ratio of sixteen ounces of silver to one ounce of gold would insure the speedy contraction of the volume of our currency. It would drive at least five hundred millions of gold dollars, which we now have, permanently from the trade of the country, ®nd greatly decrease our per capita circulation. It is not proposed by the Republican Party to take from the circulating medium of the •country any of the silver we now have. On the contrary, it is proposed to keep all of the silver money now in circulation on a parity with gold by maintaining the pledge of the Government that all of it shall be •equal to gold. This has been the unbroken policy of the Republican Party since 1878. It has inaugurated no new policy. It will keep in •circulation and as good as gold all of the silver and paper money which are now included in the currency of the country. It will maintain their parity. It will preserve their equality in the future as it has always done in the past. It will not consent to put this country on a silver basis, which would inevitably follow independent free coinage at a^ratio of sixteen to one. It will oppose the expulsion of gold from our circulation. FARMERS AND LABORERS SUFFER MOST. If there is any one thing which should be free from speculation and fluctuation it is the money of a country. It ought never to be the subject of mere partisan contention. When we part with our labor, our products, or our property, we should receive in return money which is as- stable and unchanging in value as the ingenuity of honest men can make it. Debasement of the currency means destruction of values. No one suffers so much from cheap money as the farmers and laborers. They are the first to feel its bau effects and the last to recover from them. This has been the uniform experience of all countries, and here„ as else- ■where, the poor, and not the rich, are always the greatest sufferers from -every attempt to debase our money. It would fall with alarming severity upon investments already made; upon insurance companies and their policy-holders; upon savings banks and their depositors; upon building and loan associations and their members; upon the savings of thrift; upon pensioners and their families; and upon wage earners, and the purchasing power of their wages. 7
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