at England is a land of poor rates and poor unions. The latest official
announcement is that the agricultural interest is declining more rapidly
than ever before; and in regions where only fifteen years ago the land
rented readily at several pounds per acre, statesmen and economists are
appalled at the sight of that which so alarmed our New England people a
few years ago: the phenomenon of abandoned farms. We are told that there
is a revival of industry because British capitalists have withdrawn their
money from other countries and will put it in anything rather than have it
entirely idle; but the condition of agriculture steadily grows worse.

And have we anything to boast of in our own happy land in comparison with
France? Our natural resources so far exceed those of any old country that
a comparison would be ridiculous; and the monometallists tell us, when
they are trying to prove that gold is not enhanced in value, that, by
reason of inventions, a day's labor will produce at least twice as much as
in 1870, and in many lines a great deal more than twice as much. Why,
then, does not the laborer receive twice as much as he did in 1870? As
wages are labor's dividend of its own product, and as capital had its
dividend then as now, if a day's labor does not bring the laborer twice
what it did, he is wronged; and, considering our resources, if we are not
five times as well off as the French people, the only reason can be that
we have slighted our opportunities, and blundered most fearfully in our
management.

The monometallists profess to be great sticklers for experience and
demonstrated fact; to have a horror of "theory." We present them the
example of France as an unanswerable proof that one great nation can
maintain bimetallism, and that by maintaining it she escaped the worst
evils that have affected the monometallic countries, and assured for
herself an extraordinary progress and prosperity. We present them, in
contrast, the example of England, and point them especially to the great
difference in the progress of the common people of the two countries. We
ask them, with this experience, to consider the present condition of this
country, and the evils that have affected it since 1873, and seriously to
consider the question as to whether something is not radically wrong;
whether some malign influence has not gone between us and the reward of
our work, and robbed us of that to which we are honestly entitled.

BIME