References

• THE WORLD'S DEPRESSION LECTURE BY MR. SHIELS. Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), Tuesday 19 June 1894, page 6 ________________________________________ THE WORLD'S DEPRESSION LECTURE BY MR. SHIELS. A PLEA FOR THE REMONETISA-TION OF SILVER. GREAT MEETING AT THE ATHENAEUM. A large audience was attracted to the Athenaeum Hall last night to hear a lecture by Mr. W. Shiels, M.L.A., on The World's Depression, Its Cause and Cure. The Treasurer, Mr G D Carter, presided, and among those on the platform were the ' Archbishop of Melbourne (Dr. Carr), the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly (Mr. Thos. Bent), the Mayor (Cr. Snowden), Mr. Levers, M.L.A.; Mr. D. B. Lazarus, M.L.A.; Mr. Embling, M.L.C., and Mr. F. A. Keating, president of the Bimetallic Longue of Victoria. Mr. G. D. Carter said it was indeed a gratifying sight to see so many citizens of Melbourne assembled to hear a lecture on a subject which might not be thought of particular interest to the public. It was very pleasing to find that in these times there were so many people in Melbourne who took sufficient interest in what was going on in other parts of the world to come there and listen to An address on bimetallism ; and while it would be pleasing to Mr. Shiels to find himself faced by such an audience, it would be pleasing to them to find that the leader of her Majesty's Opposition found time enough amongst his pressing duties to devote his hours to this abstruse subject, and come before them to give them his views. (Hear, hear.) It was also pleasing to both Mr. Shiels and himself to find that though they sat on opposite sides of the House they could meet side by side on the platform to discuss a subject of such public interest. (Applause.) It had been the practice of some writers to sneer at bimetallism; in fact, he had seen a newspaper that day where there wore ' some sneers against one of the leading men of Europe simply on account of his adhesion to the subject of bimetallism. He suggested that they should inspect the roll of names of those who had already pronounced themselves in favor of this system. If it did not show more knowledge it would at all events show more modesty if unknown men were to learn instead of aspiring to teach. It was his pleasing duty to introduce Mr. Keating, the president of the Bimetallic League. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Keating said he would not be so rash as to stand for more than, a very few minutes between the principal speaker and his audience. (Hear, hear.) On behalf of the council of the league he wished to thank their friends, the members of the league and the general public for the support and assistance they had given during the past 12 months. It was not more than a year since, in that very building, a public meeting called the league into existence. Since then they had done a good year's work, and, as this great meeting showed, attracted an increased amount of public attention to the object they advocated. They had brought about a much keener public perception of the vital connection between the money standard and prices, and between prices and the general happiness and prosperity of the community. He did not claim that all the increase of public attention was duo to the propaganda of the league. He thought the fall in prices and the hard times through which the world generally, and this colony in particular, had been passing had won them many converts, but he had always held that it was not entirely due to the efforts they were making that this great amount of public attention had been aroused, bat to the immense importance of the subject itself. On this occasion they had the greatest possible pleasure in welcoming such public men as Mr. Carter and Mr. Shiels. (Hear, hear.) He would not detain them longer, except to say that they were very pleased to see such an audience, and hoped they would have an instructive and interesting address from Mr. Shiels. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Shiels, who was received with loud cheers, said his first sentence should be one of grateful acknowledgment of the brilliant and representative assemblage which« had gathered to hear an address on one of the most important subjects at present agitating the 'public mind. A dense fog of ignorance surrounded not only currency questions, but currency terms, and this mist he would endeavor to dispel. He might say, in the first place, that he had no interest in silver—all the interests left to him by the recent bank failures wore gold interests, and all his leanings were in favor of a gold standard. Money was a sociological necessity. It was the medium of exchange; it was the common denominator by which we must reduce and raise the value of all things. Some people might think that the English currency system was the perfection of wisdom and judgment. Such a view might speak well for their patriotism, but unhappily leading statesmen and financiers in England, every chamber of commerce, every trades union, all the agricultural associations, every professor of political economy who held a chair in any of the universities of Great Britain and Ireland, took a different view. They pointed out that money by certain insidious processes was capable of a foul wrong and oppression of debtors and producers. To show the supreme importance of a right consideration of money, he quoted authorities to prove that their attendance there that night was in connection with a question of the profoundest interest to humanity. In a speech at Manchester in 1892, Mr. Arthur Balfour, leader of the Conservative party in the House of Commons, laid it down that the English currency was assuredly the worst of all conceivable systems, because it gave a standard steadily, continuously and . indefinitely appreciative, and which by that very fact threw a harden upon very man of enterprise, upon every man who desired to promote the agricultural and industrial welfare of his country and benefiting no human boing whatever but the owner of fixed debts in gold. An eminent statesman had described this matter of the currency' as the hottest of burning questions. No question loomed so big on the international horizon as this question, which bad recently assembled at Brussels one of the most important congresses ever known in the world's history — a congress in which all the most eminent bankers, financiers and statesmen of the world came together to try and find a solution of the trouble which was brought on the world by an evil system of currency. Mr. Goschen, a Chancellor of the English Exchequer, who had left behind him a record of unparalleled brilliancy in finance, had said that a tremendous curse was upon the world. Depression lay like a pall across the face of all nations — none could claim immunity; and there were countries like Victoria which had felt its influence more severely than others. But he must pay a tribute of the warmest appreciation of the magnificent heroism with which the people of Victoria and Australia generally were bearing up against the tide of evil fortune. They were proving themselves worthy scions of the old stock, which on that day 79 years ago plucked security and triumph out of the fire of "Waterloo. (Cheers.) All the world over the same story was heard, credit was crushed out, the spirit of hope was gone, and unremunerative prices ware paralysing the army of industry and poisoning the springs of enterprise. The accumulations of gold which we saw taking place in the banks of Melbourne was no evidence to him that there was plenty of money about. These accumulations marked the fall in the barometer of trade. (Cheers.) In Victoria we had our own local causes at work in depressing trade, but they had simply intensified and accentuated the same malignant whirlwind that had caught the universe in its sweep. When we looked to England we were told of millions of acres of arable land which had gone out of cultivation ; hundreds of country houses shut, their owners being unable to keep them going ; thousands of farms vacant and the laborers driven into the towns to swell the numbers of the unemployed and to reduce the level of wages ; the Board of Trade reports showed a falling off of over £25,000,000 in exports and imports for 1892, and the Bankers' Clearing House in London showed a reduction of £400,000,000 as compared with 1891, and of nearly £1,400,000,000 in 1890. A million tons of shipping was lying idle with the crews discharged, labor angry and dissatisfied, Socialism spreading, and the evidence of the decline of prosperity all around. The same unhappy state of things prevailed in America, in France, in Germany, in Italy and in Russia, and the general condition of the world seemed to be commercial stagnation everywhere, an immense fall of wages, profits of manufacturers and producers vanishing, the unemployed marching about in vast armies, endangering the peace ' of Governments, and necessitating the calling out of the military to quell what was believed to be insurrection. The burden of taxation was becoming more and more oppressive, as with falling revenues, owing to declining trade, State Legislatures had to perform the most odious of all duties, namely, the imposition of fresh taxation on a people already hopelessly impoverished. To illustrate the fall in prices, he showed that if Australia got the same price for her products that alio did 20 years ago the people would be receiving £30,000,000 more than they should receive this year. This fall in prices hadkeona benefit to creditors, mortgagees, annuitants and fixed salaried men who had their wages paid in gold. Australia was a country of great-'ludebteilness, and we had to pay our debts by the sale of our produce in London for gold. He estimated that the public and private debt of Australia to the mother country amounted to £550,000,000, and wo had to pay a yearly interest on that sum of at least £15,000.000 and the fall' in prices which had taken place meant that the producers of the country had tn produce twice as much to get the same amount of gold to pay the interest on that debt as they had to do a few years ago. One of the causes most generally urged for this fall in prices was over production. He admitted that there could be partial and local over production, but that was an evil which carried with it its own nemesis, for, as profits began to fall, people began to withdraw their capital from the industries which had overproduced, and in time a normal state of things was again brought about. It was impossible that there could be an over production of wheat when there were millions starving" throughout the world, end there could be no over production of wool while women and children were going about in rags hardly sufficient to shield them from the winter's snow. (Cheers.) The statement was also made continually that those falling prices was due to the lookouts and strikes. But the state of things that he had pictured had been as great outbids the strike region as within it. And there was another factor, that nearly all the strikes recently had been, not for a lift in wages, but against a fall. (Cheer. That fall of had been brought about because the producer and the employer saw that the fall in profit through un remunerative prices had brought about the necessity of retrenchment The plea that was urged now was the fear that prices had not touched bed rook, and that future profits would not be equal to what they had been in the past. It was not strikes and lookouts which had brought about the loss of profits; it was a want of confidence in the future of prices, (Cheers.) But none of these reasons touched the real cause. In 1885 a royal ooramiiBiou was appointed in England to inquire into the causes of the depression of trade and industry, and the conclusions of the commission wore that the depression dated from 1873 or thereabouts ; that it affected every branch of industry and all the industrial countries of the world ; that it was connected with the serious fall in general prices, resulting in loss of profit and consequent irregularity of employment to wage earners ; that the duration of the depression was most unusual and abnormal, and that no adequate causes were discoverable, unless it could be found in some general dislocation of values caused by currency changes, which would be capable of affecting an area equal to that which the depression of trade covered. A subsequent commission confirmed the findings of the previous body, and, in addition, revealed serious consequences of the rupture of the bimetallic par of 15 to 7, which had existed for 70 years before 1873 in dislocating, embarrassing and to some extent destroying trade between silver and gold countries and turning trading into gambling. By the contraction of currency and the reduction of the purchasing power of silver the nations had struck a blow at credit. As a result of the demonetisation which had taken place we were now face to face with depression throughout the world. (Cheers.) The decrease, he had 'shown, was owing to the contraction of the currency; the remedy therefore must be found in the expansion or increase of currency by some means or other. So far as he knew, there were only three possible ways in which that could be done — we might increase fiduciary paper or credit substitutes for gold And silver; we might do it by winning more gold from the soil and throwing it into coin; or remonetising silver. The first method, namely, the increase of credit substitutes, appeared to him to be impracticable. If a State bank of issue was established on sound lines he should probably be found a warm supporter of it. (Cheers.) But no State bank in Victoria could affect prices which would be paid for our products in London. We had to operate on the currency of the world, and mere operations in Victoria would not advance the price of our good. (Cheers.) As for producing more gold, it seemed to him that gold was too uncertain and capricious, too fitful in its manifestations, to be of any real help. There was only one possible remedy for this depression, and that was the remonetisation of silver. (Loud cheers.) Our plain duty here in Australia was to march with the advocates of the bimetallic cause in the old country, and swell that appeal which was being made to England, the creditor of the world, to take the first step in this great and far reaching form. (Prolonged cheers.) On the motion of the Archbishop of Melbourne, seconded by the Mayor, a vote of thanks was passed to the lecturer, and the proceedings then closed.