THE POSITION taken by this magazine, in doubting the stories circulated regarding the ruin and poverty of Cuba, is being sustained by the facts as reported in the daily news from Cuba.

On August 1st, Garcia Montes, secretary of finance, in his statement presented to the Cuban cabinet, showed that the public expenditures for July were $1,236,850, as against the average monthly expenditure under General Wood's rule of $1,534,404, a saving of $297,554 a month. The receipts of the month were $1,552,653, leaving a balance on hand July 31st of $1,061,156. This gives the lie to much of the stuff that has been printed, editorially and otherwise, about the Cuban government being financially crippled, and in danger of being bankrupt by the prostrated condition of business.

Another piece of significant evidence in the same line, comes in the announcement that the great New Orleans sugar machinery and mill supply firm of Haubtman & Loeb has just purchased a large sugar plantation near New Orleans. These purchasers have given notice of their intention immediately to dismantle the magnificent sugar house on the plantation, and send the machinery to Cuba to be used in a new sugar factory there. Of course this is being done because it is more profitable to produce sugar in Cuba than in Louisiana. Will not some administration organ or orator explain to President Roosevelt the motives which will impel capitalists to move their machinery to and build factories in a country where ruin is the only thing in prospect? It is difficult to say whether partisan prejudice or habitual lying is the greater vice.

IN THE DEATH of Dr. Van Buren Denslow, every cause of human improvement lost a friend. In many respects Dr. Denslow was an exceptional man. He was a keen student of public affairs, foreign as well as domestic. He was in active journalism during the war, and took part in public discussion of the great questions during the reconstruction period. He was political editor of the Chicago

Tribune, associated with Horace Greeley on the New York Tribune, and editorial writer on the Chicago Inter-Ocean. For many years he was one of the prominent figures of the country in protective tariff discussions, frequently debating with Professor Sumner of Yale, Perry of Williams, and others, and in this he was very much at home, being thoroughly conversant with the industrial experience of the country and the doings of other countries as well. In 1888, he published a large volume of over 700 pages, on "Principles of Economic Philosophy," and for some years he was a contributor to this magazine. On the question of banking he was especially able and resourceful. While very familiar with the literature of economics and the theories of the different schools, he was particularly old-fashioned in his idea of wages, regarding which he accepted the quantity, or purely demand and supply theory, rejecting the cost of production element. The influence of this theory upon his thinking led him, as it did Francis A. Walker, to accept the sixteen to one notion of the free coinage of silver.

Dr. Denslow was a man of wide learning, great facility of expression, an indefatigable worker, a voluminous writer and excellent speaker, but lacked intellectual anchorage. He contributed something valuable to all the good movements of his time, but devoted himself to no one thing sufficiently to make his exceptional ability tell with full effect. He was the antithesis of the man with one idea. He was full of ideas on a multitude of subjects, and he freely gave them to the world. Personally he was as generous as he was mentally diffusive. Dr. Denslow was born in Yonkers in 1833, and gave society nearly fifty years of active, helpful service.

THE OPEN FORUM

This department belongs to our readers, and offers to them full opportunity to "talk back" to the editor, give information, discuss topics or ask questions on subjects within the field covered by GUNTON'S MAGAZINE. All communications, whether letters for publication or inquiries for the " Question Box," must be accompanied by the full name and address of the writer. This is not required for publication, if the writer objects, but as evidence of good faith. Anonymous correspondents are ignored.

QUESTION BOX

The Use of Gold and High Prices

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir.-Realizing your extensive studies in the economic field, I take the liberty of asking you what is the cause of the present rising prices. My personal belief is that the value of all commodities is moving upward because of the induction of gold into circulation. Our western farmers all have a large amount of money in their pockets; that is, a large amount for them as compared with their condition in former years. Our small western banks decline to accept deposits, for they say their money vaults are already overflowing.

It costs 33 1-3 per cent. more to live now than it did five or six years ago. Why are not wages rising in proportion?

If the induction of gold is causing this extraordinary economic development, where is the movement to end if the mining of gold keeps on in its present extensive manner? Must there be demonetization of gold? Then what?

I should be pleased to hear from you on these points, either by means of public article or private letter. I think we are approaching the danger line somewhere. Indianapolis, Ind.

P. D. M.

That the induction of gold into circulation is the cause. of rising prices is the reverse of all experience. If a change in the value of money affects prices at all, an increase in the value of the standard will tend to lower, not raise, prices, because the more valuable the coin the more it will buy and consequently the cheaper will be the goods.

The chief complaint of the farmers and silver people. in the campaign of 1896, was that the low price of wheat was due to the high value of money. They demanded the free coinage of silver because that would give cheap money and consequently high prices.

Whatever may be the cause of the present high prices, they are not due to the induction of gold into circulation. The high prices now prevailing are chiefly due to the change of economic conditions affecting cost of production.

Take the high price of beef about which so much is being said, as recently explained in these pages.* The real cause of the high price of beef is the scarcity of cattle, and the exceptionally high price of corn on which a large portion of cattle are fed. In the case of iron and steel a multitude of causes affecting the cost of production are clearly observable. Prices have not risen on all productions. Cotton cloth, furniture and clothing have risen but slightly and in many instances not at all.

Our correspondent asks, why are wages not rising? Wages are rising. True, they have not risen as promptly as prices, in fact they never do throughout the country, because they always come from the result of a special demand from the laborers, and the laborers never all make a demand at once. It is a great mistake, therefore, to assume that wages are not rising.

Our correspondent asks, where is this movement to end? It is to be hoped that it never will end, for so long as there is prosperity and progress there will always be an upward tendency of prices in some industries. In others, where superior machinery is being established and competition becoming normal, prices will tend downward, but if prosperity continues, which is the all important thing, wages will continue to advance. There can be no serious approach to the danger line so long as corporations act honorably with the public and deal fairly with the laborers,

*See article on "The Beef Trust," July, 1902.

allowing their employees the same rights as they themselves enjoy to organize and promote their own interests.

The one thing most to be feared at this moment is a disturbance of the tariff policy and an attack on corporations. If the administration and the leaders of the republican party are weak enough to be dragged into an agitation of these two subjects, they may easily disturb public confidence and give us a business depression, and then the danger line will be near.

The reason for that is very clear; wages in general always follow the cost of living of the people receiving them. It is for that reason that in any general change in wages and prices, wages are the last to rise and the last to fall. The prices begin to rise immediately with the returning prosperity. It was not until the increased prices began to affect the cost of food and house rent and other supplies, making a perceptible impression upon the cost of living, that the laborers began to demand an increase in wages, but they did begin to demand that increase in less than a year after prices began to rise, and they have kept on demanding it.

The coal strike is a striking evidence of that fact. On the first of August the painters of New York as a result of a short strike received an advance from $3.50 to $4.00 per day. The iron workers have been increased twice since the rise of prices began. Five thousand conductors and motormen employed on the traction line in Philadelphia have recently received a ten per cent. increase. The cotton operatives of New England have received a ten per cent. advance; the structural iron bridge workers in and around Pittsburgh have received an increase of twenty-five per cent., and a reduction of hours. The flax workers of Paterson, N. J., just received an increase varying from five to ten per cent., according to the scale. Quite recently the United States Steel Corporation advanced the wages of some fifteen thousand employees ten per cent. without being asked to do so. The workers in the rolling mills