The value of silver has been going up all the
week, and may go much higher, the two Houses of Congress having agreed on a Bill to compel the Treasury to buy $4,500,000 a month of silver, instead of $2,000,000. Certificates will be issued against the silver, and they may be redeemed on presentation, either in silver, as the House proposes, or in gold, silver, or paper, as the Senators wish, under a plan not yet settled. It is believed that the whole silver production of the States will go into the Treasury, and be reissued in certificates, to the great inflation of the circulating medium and the consequent development of temporary prosperity. Nearly £11,000,000 sterling will be added to the currency every year, or £110,000,000 every decade. It is also believed that at some point or other there will be too much silver in the Treasury, and that when the silver is "unloaded "—that is, sold to the world at large—there will be a crash in all silver-using countries. That is all accurate in theory, but not quite so certain in practice, the quantity of currency really wanted in the Union being as yet undecided. Population increases rapidly, distances are vast, and the practice of using cheques is hardly fully developed. A country like the Union can absorb a large quantity of fairly secured paper-money, which is what the certificates will be. Intermediately, of course, the Indian difficulty of exchange will be much relieved, and the Indian Government will benefit, though the Indian exporter will lose. At present, he pays wages and buys produce in silver, and sells his goods for gold, a difference in his favour of 25 per cent.
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