as the demands of competitive business made it necessary for the men to live elsewhere and the separation of families grew intolerable. And in the two large cities near, vacant stores and offices are a frequent sad spectacle. Even if a boom in building should immediately follow the adoption of the single tax, it could not continue indefinitely.

(6) We set out with the question, "Is the single tax enough to solve the labor question?"-which Miss Gay asserts and Miss Chapman reiterates, but which Mrs. Brokaw and others prudently fail to affirm. As for myself I am more sure than ever that our equal right to the use of the earth (which includes the equal sharing of economic rent) is simply a necessary part of the full solution. I did not mean to set this question aside in suggesting the inevitable choice between industrial self-government and a plutocratic oligarchy. Mrs. Brokaw says the question is "whether we shall have equal or unequal freedom." The former, by all means, say I. So let us all try unitedly, in the great struggle before us, to free ourselves not only from the power of land-grabbers, but also from the power of the money-grabbers, a well-entrenched class who mean to issue and manipulate our currency, with power to corner any metal or commodity money, and to fatten by the repeated issues of unnecessary interest-bearing bonds. Our equal freedom is impossible with a monopolized telegraph to control our communication, and with railroads run for private gain. Reforms here, and more also, are necessary to our equal freedom. It seems to me decidedly like "making a programme for Providence" to insist that the single tax must be accomplished first in order of time.

Equal freedom means a great deal, and the quotation from Mr. George, given above and italicized by me, applies again right here: "With great capital nothing can compete sare great capital." Full economic equality is the desideratum. Nowhere short of this is there equal freedom.

As soon as I saw our August papers in print, I noticed that the quotation from Huxley which I added at the last moment does not apply to Miss Chapman's remarks on nature's part in our economic salvation. She was thinking not of what is called the "cosmic process" (the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest), but of that beautiful power of self-healing which Nature displays when she has a fair chance. I too admire and reverence that power. But I cannot agree with Miss Chapman that in our present complex civilization the mere shifting of taxation from everything else to economic rent "will guarantee a just

equality of opportunity to all men," and that all else may be lert to "God and Nature."

The gathering of the single tax and its application to public uses are artificial processes. How much depends upon the use made of that public revenue! "God and Nature" would demand the exercise of human judgment, and could not be displeased by any organization of our industrial forces which would enable every one of us--including our weak and suffering and long-defrauded brothers and sisters to reap the full benefits of all that the progress of civilization has brought us, and give equal freedom to all for the use and enjoyment of life's best gifts-equal oppor tunity to grow and learn, and do and enjoy.

F. E. R.

A UNIVERSAL RATIO-A SILVER BILL TO

SUIT BOTH PARTIES.

BY ROBERT STEIN.

U. S. SENATE, WASHINGTON, D. C., March 21, 1895. Mr. Stein's article on the Kanitz free silver bill is an admirable presentation of the present situation. How is it possible to avoid the conclusion that the fall in the price of silver is caused by its demonetization, and that the price will be restored by remonetization? It cannot, perhaps should not, be done at a bound, but by some gradual though sure process. Why, then, should not the United States pass the Kanitz free silver bill, declaring its determination to open its mints again to free coinage, at the French ratio of 15 to 1, when enough nations have acceded to make success certain? I see no objection.

W. E. CHANDLER.

BROWN UNIVERSITY, PROVIDENCE, R. I., Aug. 27, 1895. You have done a useful piece of work in publishing a "uniform ratio bill" for circulation in our country. I hope some such bill will pass Congress. Unity of ratio is all-important, and you do well to emphasize it. I hope you are right in saying that the President of the United States would sign such a bill, and I dare say you are.

E. BENJ. ANDREWS, President Brown University.

ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND, Aug. 29, 1895. While I would not have it understood that I advocate the ratio of 15 to 1, I do not think there can be a question that you are right as between 15 to 1 and 16 to 1 for the United States. Of course 16 to 1 would be perfectly inoperative in America if 15 were in force in Europe; or rather, as you point out, it would be operative in the sense that you would be drained of silver and France of gold. The French are far too shrewd to go into any arrangement of such a kind; and the effect of your adopting 16 to 1 would be, in my opinion, to effectually stop international bimetallism.

H. X. FOXWELL,

Professor of Political Economy, Cambridge University.

SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO, Sept. 2, 1895. I think the plan proposed in your article is probably the best of any that can be accomplished at this time, and it would certainly be a very great step forward if such a bill could be passed and signed. I think that all who have given attention to the subject will agree that the ratio of 15 to 1 is the proper one, and probably the only one on which we can secure the concurrence of France and the other Latin Union countries, and I am very glad to see that point so clearly brought out in your article. We advocate 16 to 1 because that is simply a restoration and not a novelty, and therefore avoids some argument; but of course everyone favoring 16 to 1 will be glad to have the ratio made 15 to 1, and I think all understand that if there is international action, it should be on that basis. I am heartily in favor of "independent action" by our government; but of course I know it would be a great advantage if we can have the cooperation of others; and besides, a great many would support a bill like yours, who would not favor independent action.

L. BRADFORD PRINCE, LL. D.,
Ex-Governor of New Mexico.

CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES, PARIS, FRANCE, Sept. 11, 1895.

I do not believe that the solution of the problem of the establishment of international bimetallism can at present be brought about by a conference similar to those that have been held in the past. In this respect I share the views recently set forth by Mr. Balfour. The governments will have to arrive at a previous understanding on the points under discussion before such a conference assembles. The governments themselves will not take this step unless their parliaments compel them. It is the duty of bimetallists in the various nations to labor for this end.

The proper common ratio is that which imposes no serious sacrifices on anybody. You show very clearly that the ratio of 15 to 1 is the only one which really fulfils this condition, and you will render a signal service to the general cause of justice, by the reëstablishment of monetary peace among men, if you succeed in causing the ratio of 15 to 1 to be adopted by the United States.

I am convinced that if in 1834, when your great republic modified its monetary law, changing from 15 to 1 to 16 to 1, you had adopted 154 to 1, the ratio prevailing in France, all the monetary crises which have been ruining us all during the past twenty years would have been avoided; because I am firmly convinced that if in 1873 a monetary union had been in existence for nearly forty years between France and the United States, on the common basis of the ratio of 15 to 1, these two great republics might have remained indifferent to the monetary policy of Germany, and might have continued, by their powerful union, to assure to the world the benefits of a stable standard of value.

There is no objection whatever to the separate adoption by the respective parliaments of France, Germany, England and the United States of a law declaring, in substance, that their citizens are authorized to pay their taxes either with a fixed weight of gold or with a weight of silver 15 times as great; with an additional clause stating that this law shall become operative only when the government of France, Germany, England, and the United States shall have agreed on a common date for its promulgation.

I for my part am willing to labor for this end, and I was glad to learn at a recent visit to the German Bimetallic League that several of its most prominent leaders share this view.