would
have shown the silver product of that year, as will be seen further
on, to have been, in round numbers, 63,500,000 fine ounces, of the
commercial value, at the average price of fine silver during the year,
of $0.8750 per ounce, of $55,562,500, and the coining value of
$82,101,010, instead of, at 58,000,000 fine ounces, of the commercial
value of $50,750,000, and the coining value of $74,989,900.
For
a number of years prior to 1892, it had been the custom of the Bureau,
in these reports, to make two separate estimates of the production of
silver during the year under consideration, and to give their mean as
the approximate silver product of such year. One of these estimates was
obtained by adding together the private refiner's output of fine metal
of domestic origin, the amount of unrefined silver of domestic origin
deposited at the mints and assay offices of the United States, and the
exports of silver in copper matte and ores. The other was reached by
the addition of the total deposits of silver at United States mints and
assay offices classified as of domestic production, the exports of
domestic bullion (except mint or assay office bars), the silver
exported in copper matte and ore, the bars of domestic production
furnished by private refineries to manufacturers and jewelers for
industrial employment, and the stock of bars of current years' product
(exclusive of bars bearing the stamp of a United States mint or assay
office) held by banks and private refineries at the close of the year;
and deducting from the sum thus obtained the silver in foreign ores and
bullion smelted and refined in the United States and classified at the
mints and customhouses as of domestic production.
This
is the same method that has been adopted by the Bureau for a series of
years in making the estimate of the annual production of gold in the
United States. Previous to 1892 it had never been the practice of the
Bureau to base its estimates of the gold or silver output of the
country on the data furnished by the agents employed by the Mint Bureau
to report on the production of the several States and Territories,
because, as remarked in the Report on the Production of Gold and Silver
in the United States, 1891, p. 22—
"
However conscientiously the agents selected may have performed the
duties assigned them, experience has proven that the tendency to
exaggeration on the part of direct producers is so great, and the
sources of information in many cases so imperfect, as to preclude the
possibility of accepting such reports, in all cases, as correctly
exhibiting the product of the different States and Territories, or in
the aggregate the product of the mines of the United States."
The
Bureau's method, described above, of estimating the annual product of
the precious metals in the United States has been universally
commended by the best statisticians of the precious metals.
In
the absence of any explanation or reason for such a radical change in
the method of estimating the production of silver in the United
States—a method which has commended itself so strongly to the minds of
the most expert statisticians of the precious metals—it
