said the Chancellor of the Exchequer--
and am prepared still to contend, that I should prefer the
currency of the world to depend upon two metals rather than upon
one metal. To those views I gave expression in 1878. * * * I have
always looked upon silver and gold not as antagonistic to each
other; not as being metals the price of one of which would
necessarily fall when the other rose, but I have looked upon them
as partners who together were doing the work of the currency of
the world.
The English creditor classes have not been without able coadjutors in
this country. We have noticed for the last twelve or fourteen years that
zealous advocates of the gold standard, the advantages of which are not
confined to Great Britain, are to be found among the creditor classes of
the United States.
If the toilers of this country, from the proceeds of whose labor these
exactions have to be paid, had as little influence on the legislation of
the United States as the toilers of England have on the legislation of
that country, the creditor classes and financiers of the United States
might be as frank as those of Great Britain in admitting the object of
maintaining the single gold standard.
How graphically, though unintentionally, does the English poet, Waller,
in the following verse, express the advantage which the gold standard
gives to creditors everywhere, and the self-satisfaction with which they
contemplate life:
The taste of hot Arabia's spice we know,
Free from the scorching sun that makes it grow.
Without the worm, in Persia's silk we shine,
And, without planting, drink of every vine.
To dig for wealth we weary not our limbs,
Gold, though the heaviest metal, hither swims.
Ours is the harvest where the Indians mow.
We plow the deep, and reap what others sow.