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SILVER USERS AND OPIUM
Copyright March 2004 Charles Savoie

As I begin writing this on February 17, 2004, I await, like all of you, the arrival of March (or May) to see if COMEX silver deliveries become defaults or attempted postponements. I am waiting to see if the NYMEX-COMEX will formulate a rule that says, longs have no delivery rights, except at the whim of short sellers. This, after increasing margin requirements doesn't produce enough of a shakeout. Maybe they'll call all long contract holders standing for delivery and say, "hey, you don't actually want silver---look, here's a check!" After all, no one has legitimate use for physical silver except the Silver Users Association! Speaking of whom, besides sending so many jobs overseas lately, are they closing down their HQ as suggested by their recently scaled down website? Maybe the COMEX will say contracts due for March delivery can be deferred up to 60 months at short sellers request. I am waiting to see if the spider-hole CFTC hatchet men back up abusive rule changes. I am waiting to see if the COMEX loses the world silver market, because no commodity market can survive if physical delivery cannot be made. As we find in the Wall Street Journal, October 26, 1979, page 48---

"The possibility of a delivery squeeze always brings near-panic to a commodities exchange."

I am watching to see what intervention may be attempted by the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the White House, Congress, the Courts, the Department of Homeland Security and the New York state attorney general. Seems like Spitzer would have acted already, were he willing. Maybe it's because his old law firm, Skadden Arps, has lawyers who represent Du Pont, Silver Users Association member! I am watching to see what foreign silver producing nations will say, and if they propose sanctions against America such as export embargo on newly mined silver because our government has tolerated such long-standing abuse of the silver price. I am watching to see if a high level source attempts to blame Arabs for withdrawing (nonexistent) silver from London, alleging it to have been bound for COMEX delivery. (See archives, October 2002). Maybe Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates, and the Islamic Mint, will be blamed for the silver shortage---they spirited all the silver out of London, (where there are no warehouse reporting requirements), and took it to coin silver "dirhams!" We will be watching to see if lower level figures are selected as fall guys, allowing the real string pullers like chairmen of the board, upper management and directors to evade judgment.

It may even be possible that a large freight carrying vessel could be sunk on the high seas, we could be told it was carrying the silver, but it capsized in waters too deep to recover the cargo. In such a case, they can blame Bin-Laden. Tom Brokaw and other distinguished reporters (including those who've won the Du Pont Journalism Award) can "explain" the silver crisis to us. I am a person who does not trust these short sellers. I have silverusersassociation.org in my bookmarks. I have had no reason to click there daily. However, very recently (in a matter of a few short weeks) their site has changed. Canadian Ed Steer of Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee brought this to my notice. There is suddenly very little content there---and no membership list. However, these facts are already known, plus the fact of their announcements of shifting many more jobs to India (cheap labor and silver) and China (cheap labor). Jason Hommel commented to me that their site was "gutted." The law needs to fall very hard on them, and foreign nations need to be in on it! All I can think is appropriate, they need to forfeit all their assets, the funds placed in an account to pay some restitution to aggrieved parties. Regardless of whether regulators act just before the clock strikes midnight during March, May or July 2004, to make a pretense of shielding the public, they should be rolled in flour and tossed into the deep cooking oil, for doing nothing for so many years. That is proof they were hired to protect silver shorts. All the CFTC and NYMEX/COMEX decision makers should be led off in shackles. Will you disc jockeys now start that hit song, "Don't go around tonight, cause it's bound to take your life---there's a bad moon on the rise!"

Others with a justifiably suspicious nature are watching to see if some other alleged terrorist act takes place, like an anthrax contamination of COMEX warehouses, so someone can say, delivery must be suspended. Or someone could say, ricin was found there, so the silver is in lock-up while evidence is sought (there goes the introduction of castor bean futures!) We will all be watching these events, as well as any lawsuits over the failure of regulators and exchange management to guarantee market integrity. Milberg Weiss, are you reading this? We still see attorney ads on television with toll free numbers, looking for plaintiffs in the analyst promoted stock frauds. Gustavus Myers in "History of the Great American Fortunes" (1907) commented on page 303---

"Common gambling, so-called, was a crime. The gambling of the exchanges was legitimate and legalized, and the men who thus gambled with the resources of the nation were esteemed as highly respectable and responsible leaders of the community. For a penniless man to sell anything he did not own, OR WHICH WAS NOT IN EXISTENCE, WAS HELD A HEINOUS CRIME AND WAS SEVERELY PUNISHED BY A LONG PRISON TERM."

It calls to mind all those mega-millions of nonexistent silver ounces sold naked short, huh? While we wait for events to take place, let's take another look at part of the history of silver. Let's take a look at some things that appeared in a notable source mostly during the period, 1842-1854, about silver. Towards the second half we will focus on the old link between opium and silver, and connect that to other silver related matters including unbacked paper "money." First we will review some items not having to do with opium and silver, as these conveniently appeared in the same primary source, and feature many useful facts. The more historical background we consider, the better the foundation of understanding the silver situation moving forward.

"The paper system has received so severe a blow, that in all probability the future necessary increase in the circulating medium must consist of coined money." ---Merchants Magazine, New York, September 1842, page 267. Here we see again that paper money by itself is not wealth and that paper must have full backing for stability! This statement came from the wreckage in the wake of the end of the second Bank of the U.S. and the pandemonium set loose by the financiers in the Panic of 1837 that they unleashed in retaliation against "Old Hickory" Andrew Jackson and Congress refusing to renew that bank charter (see further down, after account of the opium trade---transacted in silver---for link of this original "Federal Reserve" bank to the opium business.)

"The silver coins in Ireland had by this time (1804) become so light, that twenty-one shillings were not intrinsically worth more than nine." ---Merchants Magazine, New York, September 1842, page 270. One of many examples of coin debasement, similar to the Kennedy half dollar being reduced to 40%, then to zero percent, silver.

"As a currency, or money, they have been used as measures of value, and also as instruments or means of payment. On account of their durability, convertibility, and great intrinsic value, in proportion to their weight, they constitute the best and safest currency which the world can furnish; though a currency composed mostly of paper, based on the precious metals, is much cheaper, and more convenient. Gold and silver have an intrinsic value in the public estimation, to the full amount at which they pass as money; while bank notes, and other paper money, are but the representatives of value. Prior to the discovery of America, an ounce of gold was equal in value in Europe to about ten ounces of silver." ---Merchants Magazine & Commercial Review, August 1850, page 160. Many Americans still believe that Federal Reserve Notes are "wealth." They have a painful education to receive concerning unconstitutional, unbacked currency. The middle class has received no warning from the banker prostitute economists who infest colleges and universities, themselves indoctrinated on corrupt fellowships and scholarships, and who pompously give each other bogus awards!

"The Bank of Venice was the first banking establishment in Europe. It was founded in 1171, and subsisted till the subversion of the republic in 1797. It was a deposit bank only, and issued no notes. The Bank of Amsterdam was established in the year 1609, and that of Hamburg in 1619; they were deposit banks only, and issued no notes. The Bank of England was incorporated in the year 1694, and was the first bank which ever issued notes, or bills to circulate as money, in the transactions of trade and commerce. The Bank of Scotland was established in 1695, with a capital of but 100,000 pounds, which was raised to 200,000 sterling in the year 1744, and in 1804 to 1,500,000 pounds. The original capital of the Bank of England was but 1,200,000 sterling, consisting of a loan of that amount to the government. These two were the only banks (if we except some private companies and bankers in London) that ever issued notes for a circulating medium, or money, and as a substitute for coin, prior to the eighteenth century, and the credit of the notes of the Bank of England was at first so poor, that the bank became involved in difficulties in 1696, and was compelled to suspend payment of its notes in coin, and the notes fell in value, and passed at a heavy discount. The amount in circulation February 28th, 1700, was but 938,240, and in August of the same year only 781,430."
---Merchants Magazine & Commercial Review, August 1850, pages 170-171. "Notes" are not a substitute for real gold and silver money! Not 304 years ago, not today!

In "Silver Mines In Ireland," Merchants Magazine & Commercial Review, August 1850, page 246, we read about the "Gort Silver Mines" near the town of Gort---

"The ore is situated close to the surface in some places---so close that we may be surprised at the length of time during which all this wealth lay concealed in the earth. Five openings have been made in different portions of the rock, and three shafts have been sunk, more for the sake of enlarging the field for labor, and tracing the direction of the veins of ore, with a view to more extended operations, than for the sake of collecting the ore at present. On entering one of the galleries, which are reached by flights of steps cut in the rock, the visitor will, after proceeding a few yards through a narrow passage dimly lighted with candles, arrive at a larger chamber, the walls of which resemble a solid mass of crystallized lead or silver. Here he will find miners at work, opening new galleries, and tracing the direction of the ore. The large lumps of ore are carried out in wheelbarrows, and the portions of limestone or talc attached to them are separated with a heavy hammer, after which the ore is broken. Gravel is sifted in copper sieves, and all the larger portions broken again, until the whole is reduced to the consistency of coarse sand. This sand is afterwards placed in a copper sieve, which is immersed in a cistern of water, and by a rotatory motion given by the miner to the sieve, the heaviest portions, containing all the valuable metal, fall to the bottom, and the lighter portions are skimmed off with an iron scoop from the top, and thrown away. The finer portion is again subjected to several washings, after which it is packed in casks for exportation to England. Specimens of the ore of this mine have obtained 55 pounds 2 shillings per ton when brought to this state, and the ton of ore sometimes contains 240 ounces of silver."

In the long history of silver mining, we are aware of the progression of metal recovery methods from primitive, to the advanced processes used today. We are also aware that most of the best ore grades have long since already been mined. Depletion of geological silver reserves is a fact. Few mines today often produce 240 ounces of silver per ton. Bonanza ore is scarce. Everything about the silver supply suggests a severe long-term squeeze! To diverge a bit from this purely chronological order of article references, because we can examine another mining reference in conjunction with this one, we'll take a look at Merchants Magazine & Commercial Review, January 1854, page 132, article titled, "Silver At The Copper Mines Of Lake Superior"---

"The Hon. Truman Smith, United States Senator from Connecticut, has written a letter announcing an important discovery in respect to our mineral interest on Lake Superior, which he made by the agency of an accomplished metallurgist recently from Europe. Mr. Smith has spent most of the summer on the lake, active in attending to the interests of several companies in which he is concerned. It has not been known, or even suspected until recently, that there is in the matrix of some of the mines, if not all, an ore of silver. Mr. Smith gives a statement of four parcels which were reduced with the results (we quote from his letter) as follows---

"No.1. From Northwest Mine, yield after the rate of 56 oz. of silver to 100lbs. Of ore---equal to 1,120 oz. per ton; value, $1,355.21.
No.2. Isle Royale Mine, yield after the rate of 26 oz. to the 100 lbs---equal to 520 oz. per ton; value, $627.20.
No.3. From the same mine, yield after the rate of 40 oz. to the 100 lbs.---equal to 800 oz. per ton; value $968.
No.4. Cliff Mine, yield after the rate of 12 oz. to the 100 lbs---equal to 240 oz. per ton; value, $290.40

"I am informed by Gen. Villomil, the very able Minister from Ecuador, it is considered in South America that an ore which will yield from 4 to 6 ounces will pay all mining expenses. It should be borne in mind that I brought forward these ores, adhering as they did to the copper, without the slightest suspicion that they were argentiferous, and therefore it cannot be said that they were selected specimens. That the ores are likely to add much to the value of our mines, I strongly believe. The mining expenses are all incurred in taking out the copper. Hence, whatever may be obtained in the form of silver, will be an addition to our resources. The questions may be asked---What is the amount of these ores? Are they likely to become a matter of national importance? I feel it to be my duty to caution the public against wild speculations based on these revelations. I am engaged in the business of mining, which I hold to be useful, legitimate, and proper; but I abhor stock-jobbing---it has been the greatest curse of Lake Superior. Let us keep cool, ascertain the facts, and act accordingly. I make this statement because my experiences are on the streets, and I deem it best to have the case in an authentic form."

Grades ranging from 240 to 1120 ounces silver per ton are nearly unheard of today. Evidence is pervasive that the highest ore grades, most of them, are depleted, nearly everywhere. A typical concentration of silver in copper ore might be .08 ounce per ton (Wall Street Journal, January 8, 1968, page 10). The remarks about manipulated stock promotions show this to have been an honest man; sometimes that seems as scarce as silver. Truman Smith (1791-1884) was a member of the so-called "Whig" party, of which unbacked paper money opponent Daniel Webster was a leader. In 1849 Smith declined an appointment to become Secretary of the Interior, probably due to his mining activities near Lake Superior, in which he had active interest up to age 81 (1872). Along these same lines of depletion of bonanza grade silver, the Sonora Exploring & Mining Company reported silver grades of up to 718 ounces of silver per ton (New York Times, January 11, 1859, page 2; the same source said later (September 17, 1859, page 1), that their ore ran to $20,000 per ton in metal value (check out the microfilm, that's what it said) which would give a lot more than 718 OPT silver. If such grades remain to be discovered in our times at many sites, it will be the buzz of the mining world.

In Merchants Magazine & Commercial Review, January 1851, article titled, "California Gold," we encounter on pages 19 through 22---

"The growing scarcity of silver, so as in some places to command a premium, and the preference shown by the banks to pay in gold rather than silver. But it is very desirable to have both metals in circulation---gold for large payments, and silver for small, and of the two, silver is much the most important, not only because it carries on the small daily traffick of all classes, but because bank notes are a much better substitute for gold than for silver. Congress decided on making both gold and silver standards of value and legal tenders. In Russia there is but one standard of value and legal tender, which is silver. Gold nevertheless readily circulates there. Repeal the law by which one metal is artificially elevated in price and the other depressed, and there would be no more reason to expect a permanent scarcity of either metal, than of coffee, sugar, iron, or any other commodity. We regard gold and silver as a favorable merchandise, because it is so readily exchangeable for every other commodity. After the equilibrium between the metals is restored---as it soon will be---there will be no reason to give a general preference to one metal or the other, either for import or export. Supposing a single standard to be adopted; which should it be, silver or gold? Silver has been thought the preferable metal by most political economists, because it is in most countries the ordinary measure of value; and because from its greater abundance than gold, it is less liable to fluctuations. Even in England, where gold has been adopted, some of her ablest writers on the subject of money have regarded silver as the natural and real measure of value. The unprecedented fertility of the California mines bids fair to reduce the value of that metal with a rapidity that is without parallel in the annals of the world. The relative value of these metals for about two thousand years was throughout the world ten to one, we have reason to presume that this is the natural proportion between them. We cannot think it improbable that as the rich silver mines of Potosi and other parts of Spanish America altered the proportion by lowering the price of silver, in like manner the rich gold mines of California and Siberia may restore the old proportion by lowering the price of gold."

In the 154 years since that was written, the ever-increasing consumption of silver by industry has changed the gold-silver ratio, value wise, much in favor of silver. Looking again into Merchants Magazine & Commercial Review for March 1851, we find on pages 275-283 various items---

"In England the appreciation of the value of silver is more apparent, by reason of her greater intercourse with the continental countries, whose currency is wholly silver. Our legal tender being silver or gold, at the option of the debtor, an appreciation in the value of silver will be no more injurious to the man who owns gold, than an appreciation in the value of leather. Our old Continental paper money became eventually worth in silver, only 1 percent of its nominal value. When the notes would eventually exchange for silver at only 1 percent of their nominal value, the debts for which they were then a legal tender, had been contracted on a basis graduated by the depreciation of the bills. A bank may today become worthless."

Unbacked paper money can become worthless, and banks can fail. Examples are prominent in history, yet people today believe it can't happen now. This is why remonetization is necessary for world stability. The March 1851 Merchants Magazine & Commercial Review, "Scarcity Of Silver Coin," page 392, said---

"It seems curious that the continental powers should insist on their people using for currency silver, which is so much dearer in proportion than gold."

As we've seen, the California and Australia gold rushes put a lot of gold on the market, and it made silver proportionately scarcer than previously. To use that writer's words, it seems curious as to why he didn't fathom why continental European powers were stressing silver currency. Simply, it was because England had been on a pure gold standard for over 30 years, and a geopolitical struggle was under way, to include colonial expansionism and empire maintenance by the British. One of the results of the Franco-Prussian war of 1871 was to damage silver use in money. By 1873, the British moneylenders finally had their way by intrigue with which silver was demonetized in America. In "A Silver Mine In Virginia," appearing in Merchants Magazine & Commercial Review, July 1851, page 133, we read---

"The Charleston (Va.) Spirit of Jefferson says that a silver mine has been discovered on the farm of Messrs. James and Dennis McSherry, of that county, situated on the east bank of the Shenandoah river, and at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The mine was discovered some months since, and a small specimen obtained and forwarded to the Philadelphia Mint to be assayed. The Superintendent of the mint has returned the same, made into a ten-cent piece, and pronounces the ore as exceedingly rich. The ledge of rocks in which the ore is impregnated, is of immense size. Every three pounds of rock, it is estimated, will yield one dollar in silver."

We assume the estimated silver yield was based on more than one ore specimen. At any rate, here's another instance of rich silver mines becoming scarcer, and that mine must have been worked out over a century ago. In "Silver Mines in California," same publication, August 1851, page 257, we find---

"The mine was worked some twenty years ago, and some families in the south have plate manufactured from silver taken from this location. During the California revolution, lead was obtained and made into balls."

The silver was probably shipped to a New England state, where silversmiths crafted it into end user items. And they probably profited much more than the raw material supplier. Dear reader, please bear in mind my suggestion, presented here last month, that silver companies begin their own in-house lines of easily fabricated consumer items, sold straight to the consumer, bypassing Wal-Mart, which seems to be attempting to become the Standard Oil of the retailing world. Please notify your managements that we are interested in adding to the profitability of our silver, by enjoying additional fabrication mark-ups. That silver mine also supplied lead for bullets in a fight for California freedom. Merchants Magazine & Commercial Review, May 1852, pages 600-601 contained the following---

"The exportation of our silver coin will flood the country with paper money to which there are many grave objections. Silver has always in times past been our usual medium of circulation; before the Revolution and since, down to the present day. Few gold pieces are seen in circulation; and it is objectionable to alter the usual standards. The world generally employs silver, everywhere, except in England, it is the usual medium of payments. This is true of Europe, even; in Asia, in China, and in India especially, silver is almost the only medium of commercial exchange."

The world generally used silver in 1852, yes, however, as the next item will illustrate, the British Empire was on a single gold standard, and by 1873, the Crown and associated interests behind the Bank of England got their way by having silver demonetized, causing fantastic financial dislocations all over the world, while tremendously adding to their own crafty geopolitical power. The November 1852 edition of this magazine, pages 609-610, had an article, "Scarcity Of Silver Coin In Europe," let's look at some of it (actually quoted from the London Times)---

"There never was known for many years so great a scarcity of silver currency as at present, in consequence of the vary large exportations of silver that have recently taken place to Port Philip, Melbourne, Geelong, Sydney, and other ports of Australian colonies for the convenience of the adventurers at the gold diggings. Not a vessel leaves the ports of London, Plymouth, Bristol, Liverpool, &c., but takes out a considerable amount of both gold and silver, either by speculators who are proceeding to the above colonies for the purpose of making large purchases of gold from the emigrants now working at the diggings, or consigned by capitalists and bullion dealers to their agents at Port Philip, &c., for the same purpose. It is with much difficulty that the bankers in the City and West End can obtain silver currency to any amount either at the Bank of England or at the Royal Mint, to accommodate their correspondents in different parts of the United Kingdom with silver coinage. At Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, and other large commercial towns, the demand at the various banks for silver is so great, that they are unable to supply parties with more than 100 to 200 pounds worth, as not only is a vast quantity being shipped off to Australia and India, but the demands for silver bullion and specie for France, Belgium, Holland, Hamburg and the Continent, are also very extensive."

Gold miners in Australia needed silver coin as a circulating medium, and it was in great demand all over the world. But the Bank of England had other plans to be completed within one generation, which would impoverish the rest of the world, and force nations onto the single gold standard, and increase the power of the British Empire with an astronomical surge! Much more recently, we witnessed the appalling scandal of the routine gold sales by this same Bank of England, in a scheme to depress the gold price. Gold, like silver, cannot be created by a computer entry. The evidence across the horizon is that these bankers and their allies in the U.S., Canada and Europe, want an all electronic "currency unit," which they alone can create. The cashless society is a step towards that. More than ever before, we need a precious metals lobby to fight for forcing government remonetization of gold and silver. Merchants Magazine & Commercial Review had an article in June 1853, page 763 about "Silver Mines In New Mexico" which read in part---

"The amount of capital necessary for silver mining in this country is much greater than is generally supposed. The expense attending the opening of a mine and smelting one ton of the metals, will amount to not less than one thousand dollars, and a smelting establishment cannot be put in operation under ten thousand dollars. It is therefore very desirable that Congress should enact some laws for the protection of those who engage in the business."

Using figures found in the article, the mine referred to in the Organ Mountains of south-central New Mexico had grades up to 80 ounces per ton---grades we seldom see today; another confirmation that most of the best ore is already depleted. As for the dollar cost of silver mining and refining, the cost adjusted to 2004 dollars is past the treetops. I hope the silver users think about that as they try to sleep, after last month's proposal ("Silver Wars And Silver Surprises," archives) that the miners make their own consumer silver items, depriving many users of raw material. They are free to go out of business, as many silver miners have done over the years of the theft prices. The silverware and jewelry trades alone use around 300 million ounces. We should be able to clip them (trim them back) by about half that amount, by manufacturing our own lines! Hey boy, you reading this? How do you like your world? Go dig your own silver! Returning again to the same instructive source, we find in the December 1853 issue, pages 740-741, in "Causes Of Scarcity Of Silver"---

"While the annual production of gold has quadrupled, the yield of the silver mines has remained stationary; and as the influx of gold has given an immense expansion to business of all kinds, and increased demand of every commodity, silver, being no more plentiful now than formerly, has become proportionally scarce. Secondly, in Holland and other European states, silver is the standard of value; and hence the excess of exportation to those countries over the importation from them has to be paid for in silver coin. In India gold coin is not known among the natives, from whom the commodities of commerce are purchased, nor is gold in that country a legal tender; and as the excess of Indian exportation over importation is exceedingly great, there is an enormous drain of silver to pay for the excess. In the year 1852, England alone sent fifteen millions of dollars in silver coin to India."

No wonder the British wanted silver demonetized in America and Europe! As we saw in a preceding review here, silver was very scarce in England, but they had substantial amounts of gold. By a legislative act in the U.S. Congress in February 1873, the British Empire got the rest of the world by the throat!

SILVER, OPIUM, AND FINANCIAL SUBVERSION!

While British upper classes were waging war on silver in order to make their gold far more valuable, they were poisoning over 50 million Chinese with opium grown in India. To relate the opium trade and the Opium Wars fought against China by the British, to silver, take note that the old Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, a British institution, was the financial clearing house for the mountain range of profits the British raked in; and that HSBC Bank U.S., is listed as a Silver Users Association member! From a moral perspective, it is worthwhile considering some excerpts from "The Opium Trade," appearing in Merchants Magazine & Commercial Review, New York (August 1850, pages 147-159)---

"There is no slavery so complete as that of the opium taker---once habituated to his dose as a stimulant, everything will be endured rather than the privation; and the unhappy being endures all the mortification of a consciousness of his own degraded state, while ready to sell wife and children, body and soul, for the continuance of his wretched and transient delight; transient indeed---for at length the utmost effect produced is a temporary suspension of agony; and finally no dose of the drug will remove or relieve a state of suffering which it is utterly impossible to describe. The pleasurable sensations and imaginative ideas arising at first, soon pass away; they become fainter and fainter, and at last entirely give place to horrid dreams and appalling pictures of death; specters of fearful visage haunt the mind; the light which once seemed to emanate from heaven is converted into the gloom of hell; sleep has fled forever; night succeeds day only to be clothed with nerve-rending horrors; incessant sickness, vomiting, diarrhea, and total cessation of digestive function ensue; and death at length brings, with its annihilation of the corporeal structure, the sole relief to the victim of sensual and criminal indulgence. The opium shops which I visited in the East were perfect types of hell on earth." (See below)---

Continuing, the author, who may have been a Mr. Hunt who owned the publication, said---

"In the years 1809 through 1830, and 1834, edicts one after another, were sent to Whampoa, Macao, and Canton, proclaiming these laws, and not unfrequently the severest penalties were inflicted upon such Chinese subjects as violated them. Notwithstanding all this, the trade kept constantly increasing. In 1838 it amounted to between 39,000 and 40,000 chests. The emperor, finding that the measures thus far employed had failed to check the traffick, after consulting his ministers, determined to depute an Imperial Commissioner to Canton, clothed with the highest powers and authority. The officer chosen for this purpose was Lin, a man distinguished for his talents and knowledge of maritime affairs. Lin arrived at Canton in March 1839, and immediately gave orders that all the opium, whether stored in the factories or on board ships in the harbor, should at once be surrendered. He succeeded in compelling the merchants to give up 20,000 chests, and to sign a bond that they would forever cease trading in the article. These 20,000 chests of opium were publicly destroyed in Canton, according to the commands of the emperor. This bold measure of Lin to suppress the traffic led to a war between England and China, commonly called the "opium war."

The writer quoted a Captain Elliott, who had a burst of conscience (or feared the Chinese officials) and walked away from the opium trade, as stating---

"The trade in opium had been encouraged and promoted by the Indian government, under the express sanction and authority of the British government and Parliament, and with the full knowledge also, as appears from the detailed evidence before the House of Commons, on the renewal of the last charter, that the trade was contraband and illegal." (Opium warehouse in India operated by British East India Company, below)---

"The English government itself had, in fact, directly approved of the traffick, and was deeply interested in its continuance. We find that the Parliamentary committee appointed in 1832, expressly for the purpose of considering the opium monopoly in all its bearings, moral, political, and economical, concluded their report, which was accepted, as follows---"In the present state of the revenue of India, it does not appear advisable to abandon so important a source of revenue." At the time of the war, the East India company was receiving between $10,000,000 and $12,000,000 of revenue annually from this source. The whole trade, the cultivation of the poppy, and the manufacture of the opium, the sale of the drug in Bombay and Calcutta, was encouraged by the government. The opium merchants sailed under the British flag, and were defended by British arms, and looked to the English government for protection. It was known to all parties concerned, that the traffick was contraband and illegal."

"Thus we see that England was an interested party, and would naturally be disposed to war, in order to secure indemnity for loss, and a continuance of the trade. The Chinese government had endeavored to arrest the traffick by punishing severely, and in various ways, their own subjects, and also remonstrating, entreating, and threatening the English; but all to no purpose. They saw their country and people becoming impoverished and ruined as the English continued to sell thousands of chests of opium, in spite of entreaties and threats, and in contempt of all law."

As we read on we shall see that there was a strong link between the British opium trade in China, and loss of Chinese silver gained first from the Spanish, then during the centuries of the spice and silk trade---

"That the Chinese government has always been earnest and sincere in resisting the introduction of opium, there can be no doubt. Their laws prove this fact, and such is the testimony of all disinterested foreigners residing in China. Says a writer in the Chinese Repository (for 1840, page 416)---"The opposition of the Chinese government to the opium trade has been steady and strong during a period of forty years; the prohibitions have been as clear and as explicit, and the measures to carry them into effect as constant and vigorous as the combined wisdom and power of the emperor and his ministers could make them." They refused, also, to allow the cultivation of the poppy in China, which in soil and climate is admirably fitted for its production. The poppy is cultivated to some extent in Yunan and other provinces in the southern part of China, but against the laws of the Chinese government. If they would allow the opium to be produced in China, its importation would cease, and thus a heavy drain of silver be saved to the nation. This is a lamentable thing in a great nation like China, with 350,000,000 inhabitants."

So we see that not only was the British government poisoning millions of Chinese with opium, it was ripping off their silver at the same time! The background on silver used as money in China is---they first used paper "money" in the 12th century (1100's) but by the mid 1500's, over-issue of paper had reduced its "value" to nearly nothing (sounds sadly familiar) so they went on silver mined by Spaniards in the New World, in addition to copper coins they also used. Reading more, we find---

"The war was not of long continuance. The Chinese, finding themselves soon overpowered by British arms, and their country being rapidly brought into subjection to foreign power, were ready to receive proposals of peace on almost any terms. The leading articles of the treaty proposed by the English plenipotentiary were---The Chinese government to pay the English twenty-one millions of dollars before the expiration of three years; twelve being for the expenses of the war, three for debts due English merchants, and six for the opium destroyed. Five of the principal cities of China, namely---Amoy, Canton, Ningpo, Shanghai, Fughchan, to be thrown open to British trade and residence, and the island of Hong Kong to be ceded, outright, and forever, to the Queen of England. The Chinese endeavored to introduce into the articles of agreement a prohibition of all traffick in, or importation of opium, but failed in the attempt. This subject, as far as any restriction or discontinuance was concerned on the part of the English government, was left, after the war, precisely where it was before. But it was far otherwise with China. Five of her chief seaports being now freely opened for general trade and commercial intercourse, afforded still greater facilities, and gave a more permanent foothold than ever for the opium traffick." See opium poppy below---

Hong Kong became the hub for the British opium trade, notice that a principal location was Shanghai---hence, the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank came into being, the finance house for opium in China. We saw that silver flowed from China to pay for imported opium, and HSBC Bank is today a Silver Users Association member. Their association with silver predates Kodak by 30 years or more! Would you wish your silver stored with HSBC? There is more---

"Besides these five cities being thrown open to foreign trade, the island of Hong Kong, possessing one of the best harbors in the world, and easily accessible to any part of the Chinese coast, became, after the war, the sole property of the English government. This place was selected as a great depot for trade, and a large amount of money has been expended here on public improvements such as roads, wharves, buildings &c. Opium constitutes one of the principal articles of commerce. Money was deemed of more consequence in Hong Kong than morality; it was determined, in the name of Her Majesty, to sell the permission to the highest bidder by public auction---of the exclusive right to poison the Chinese in Hong Kong---and to open opium smoking shops, under the protection of the police, for the commission of this appalling vice. Would we have acted thus towards France or Russia, and established a smuggling depot on their shores in a prohibited and terrific poison? Why then should we legalize and protect this dreadful traffick on an island given to us by the government of China as a residence, and for commercial intercourse?"

"Thus the war, instead of either terminating, or even checking this evil, has actually afforded greater facilities for its extension. The number of chests of opium imported into China has continued to increase every year, until now they amount to 60,000 chests, estimated to be worth over $40,000,000; a sum greater, by one-half, than is paid by that great empire on the whole imports from all other nations. New market places for the sale of the drug are opening up every year along the coast, up the rivers, and far into the interior of the country. The Chinese laws prohibiting its use and traffick remain unchanged, though to all practical purposes, they are a dead letter on their statute book. Since the war with England, scarcely any vigorous attempt has been made to enforce them, while prior to that event, punishment for their violation was of very frequent occurrence."

"Recent intelligence from China states that the emperor Tankwang, who had reigned for about thirty years, is dead, and that one of his sons has succeeded to the throne. Many foreign residents in China are of the opinion that under a new administration of government, the opium traffick will be legalized, and the native cultivation of the poppy encouraged. Bad as the use of the article is, this measure would undoubtedly work far better, in a political and commercial point of view, as well as improve the finances of the nation. It would prevent the immense drain of specie, and cut off the enormous profits of foreign merchants. Mr. Williams states this remarkable fact, that the "opium trade has been for fifteen years nearly fifteen millions of dollars in excess of the regular exchange of commodities, and the drainage of the country for this balance will go on so long as the taste for this pernicious narcotic continues, or there is specie to pay for it." Fifteen millions of dollars annually, for fifteen years, make two hundred and twenty five millions, to which, if we add the twenty one millions paid the English at the close of the war, we have then two hundred and forty six millions of dollars, drained from China since the year 1835, over and above the value of all its other exports."

"Thus, notwithstanding the immense quantities of tea, silks, and other productions which are annually exported from China, their combined value does not begin to equal the expenditure for this single article of destruction, which brings no equivalent whatever in return. And all this drain of specie occurs in a land where there is no national bank, or system of credit to enable the government or people to get along with a substitute for the precious metals. (Savoie---groan!) Some recent writers on China represent its finances to have been in an embarrassed state for several years past, which were attributed in part to a diminution of its revenue, BUT MAINLY TO THE VAST QUANTITY OF SILVER THAT LEFT THE TERRITORY TO PAY FOR OPIUM. But this continued and immense drain of specie constitutes only a small part of the evils which this poison inflicts upon that great empire. Loss of health and time, human suffering, mental imbecility, moral depreciation and destruction of life, are evils that cannot be reckoned in dollars and cents. The Bombay Gazette of November 20th, 1849 states that "British India now really seems to be supported by the cultivation of a poisonous drug, and selling it or smuggling it into China." How can the Chinese regard the English in any other light than wholesale smugglers and wholesale dealers in poison? The English are constantly supplying the Chinese a deadly poison, with which thousands yearly put an end to their existence. In England, druggists are expressly forbidden to sell arsenic, laudanum, or other poison, if they have the least suspicion that their customer intends to commit suicide. But in China every facility is afforded, and material supplied under the British flag, and sanctioned by Parliament itself, for wholesale slaughter."

The British forced tens of millions of Chinese into opium addiction, in exchange for which British India was overloaded with silver. In 1833 Lord Napier was made Superintendent of Trade for China. They actually forced drug addiction by deployment of military force. Later the British sent their own Indian subjects down a slippery slope, by demonetizing silver in several major economies, sucking more commodities out of India by the enhanced buying power of British gold. While opium addiction was raging in China, giving rise to the Chinese phrase "foreign devils," the British were importing tea to England, Europe and the Colonies, giving rise to the expression "all the tea in China." The Treaty of Nanking signed on August 29, 1842, ceded Hong Kong to the British Crown (for 155 years). An opium dealer, Sir Henry Pottinger, cited for distinguished service in the Opium War, became the first Governor General of Hong Kong after joining the British East India Company in 1806 (see below)---

The roots of HSBC, Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, Silver Users Association member, grow deep into shocking corruption on a huge scale during the 19th century. How many deaths were caused by opium addiction is uncertain. The figure must run past 20 million! (Montana Representative Jacob Thorkelson claimed there were as many as 400 million Chinese opium addicts, Congressional Record, August 19, 1940). Nor was this the sole source to discuss the opium trade (see New York Times, July 5, 1866, page 2). The New York Daily News, October 15, 1858 made reference to the "Parliamentary Blue Book" which claimed that British export-import trade with just the two cities of Canton and Shanghai, for the years 1844 through 1856, amounted to more than 437,700,000 pounds sterling, a truly fantastic sum; this, from the people who today control the world's money system! The Economist (London), September 19, 1857, called the opium growing territory run by the British East India Company the "garden of India." Harper's New Monthly Magazine, March 1879, page 575, in the article, "The English In India" by Thomas Knox, said---

"In the interests of civilization he does not hesitate to make war on people who prefer to remain undisturbed, and he invades China, captures her fairest city, and compels her government to rescind an edict against the importation of a poison that was killing many thousands of its subjects every year. "It was absolutely necessary for us to have a market for our opium," said an Englishman with whom I once discussed the Opium Wars, "We could not allow China to close her ports to the drug."

Very noteworthy was the fact that though the British East India Company held an official monopoly on exportation of opium to India, in the year 1816 one American, John Jacob Astor, through his American Fur Company, shipped ten tons of Turkish grown opium to China on board his ship, the Macedonian (see book review in USA Today, April 11, 2001). Astor was a British agent who supplied anti-American intelligence to the British, and was allowed by the British to conduct ocean-going cargo business during the War of 1812, in which our "allies," the British, burned Washington, because Congress, under the leadership of Jefferson, refused to renew the charter of the Bank of the United States. (Prostitute historians, like prostitute economists, will tell you that war was about other reasons! You can get better information on the War of 1812 from Johnny Horton's 1959 hit song "Battle of New Orleans," than from establishment historians; that's one of many reasons there are so many "revisionist" historians like myself!) Because of Astor, British troops got the jump on American forts across the Canadian frontier. While the British were looting India and poisoning China with opium, Astor was one of their premier agents here, as he was a director of the second Bank of the United States, whose charter, issued in 1816 for 20 years, was due to expire in 1836 unless renewed. See Astor below with his "Frankenstein" hairstyle---

Interesting that a man with ties to the British opium trade in China was a director of their bank here (based in Philadelphia, with 8 branches, forerunner to the Fed); and that, acting as the forerunner of the Federal Reserve System, it issued unbacked notes, just like the Bank of England over a century earlier! Andrew Jackson's main campaign issue was to get rid of that British controlled institution, and when 1836 arrived, the bank's charter was not renewed. Speaking of the first Bank of the United States (1791 through 1811) and its successor launched in 1816, sometimes called the United States Bank, Gustavus Myers in "History of the Great American Fortunes" (1907), page 78, remarked---

"No business institution in the first three decades of the nineteenth century exercised such a sinister and overshadowing influence as this chartered monopoly. With its control of deposits of government funds and by the provisions of its charter, this bank swayed the whole money marts of the United States and could manipulate them at will."

While Astor was most prominent in the second bank, Stephen Girard (1750-1831) was leader of the first bank, of whom Myers said (page 77)---

"His wealth was overshadowingly great, his power immense. He was a veritable dictator in the realms of finance, a repellant man, with his devil's eye. His every movement bred fear; his veriest word could bring ruin to anyone who dared cross his purposes. No poor man ever came full-handed from his presence."

Though Girard didn't found a dynasty like Astor, and ended up with much less, he served his purpose in cooperating with London interests (pages 76-77) including the Barings, one of whom at the time headed the British East India Company with its Chinese opium trade! Indicating the nonstop pervasive British influence in our economy, James W. Bell, a fellow of the Royal Economic Society of London, said the Bank of the U.S. was "good," and that efforts to oppose renewal of its charter were "unfortunate" (see American People's Encyclopedia, 1954, article on banking!) Bell said Jackson "arbitrarily removed government deposits." However, Jackson's administration actually saw a surplus, and supporting the opposition to the bank was Daniel Webster, a hard money advocate in the Senate (1827-1841) who wouldn't budge, see below---

In 1836 Jackson's administration formulated a policy by which any land bought, had to be paid for in gold or silver. Naturally that angered those who wished to pay with bank issued fake paper money, in which people lost most confidence by 1842. That was probably part of Astor's method of land purchasing, paying with unbacked "notes" from the central bank in which he was the main domestic power. In response to the denial of a new charter for the bank, and to the election of Martin Van Buren as President, who had been Jackson's vice president, and remained opposed to the central bank, the Panic of 1837 was engineered, which gave Astor the bonanza of foreclosure on many square miles of land in and around New York. Myers stated (pages 123, 131 and 133)---

"The banker, somewhat like the fabled alchemists, could transmute airy nothing into bank note money, and then by law force its acceptance. The large amount of paper money, without any basis of value whatever, was put out at a heavy rate of interest. So thoroughly did the banks control legislation that they were not content with the power of issuing spurious paper money; they demanded, and got through, an act exempting bank stock from taxation. The law legitimized the manufacture of worthless money."

Myers observed the lack of commentary concerning Astor's banking connections, on the part of all his biographers (page 121). Perhaps the problem was who owned the publishing houses! At page 147 Myers observed that as of 1844---

"Astor's wealth was one-fifteenth of the whole amount invested throughout the territory of the United States."

A very shrewd operator, this Astor, part of whose fortune was inherited from a high-seas pirate (page 113); Astor, who took opium profits out of China in the form of silver---their method of payment---and fur trading gains, for which he sent the army to slaughter native tribes in the wilderness (page 101) when turning them into alcoholics with whiskey at $50 per gallon (page 99) wasn't enough to distract them, and charged his own trappers 400% interest loans (page 100) while shorting them on the weight of the furs they brought in (page 101); and bought real estate on the fringes of New York; whereupon when the growth reached his land, the value went ballistic (one Astor alone, also a railroad magnate, owned over 700 buildings as of 1875, page 161; one property alone, bought for $23,000, became worth $10,000,000, page 120, a figure from six generations ago!) They evaded taxation to the extent that "dozens of palaces" could have been built (page 166). Those on whom the Astors held mortgages---tens of thousands of them---were ruthlessly foreclosed on after the Crime of '73 in which his British friends concealed silver demonetization from most of Congress, and the middle class couldn't make their payments in the only money they had, which was silver coin. Undoubtedly Astor shifted all his opium profits out of silver well in advance of that event! According to astorsbeechwood.com, at his death in 1848, John Jacob Astor's fortune was worth $78 billion in current dollars! Unconfirmed rumors exist that the Astors bought many square kilometers of Tokyo real estate in 1946 when that market was in devastation, and made returns of better than 2,000 to 1! No wonder Myers said (pages 105, 111, 119, 146, 173 and 273)---

"They had the extraordinary power of choosing what laws they should observe and what they should not. Death marched step by step with Astor's accumulating fortune. Astor was remarkably secretive and dissembling. It can at once be seen in what transcendent degree Astor's wealth towered far above that of every other rich man in the United States. No one but the Astors themselves knows what are their holdings in bonds and stocks of every description. The huge Astor fortune, so long far outranking all competitors. Nearly a century of fraud was behind the Astor fortune."

And as for their British pals, Myers commented (page 556)---

"Under the surface, the Rothschilds long had a powerful influence in dictating American financial laws." Second Bank of the U.S., Philadelphia, below---

Frederic Morton in "The Rothschilds" (1962, page 57) asserted that by the close of the 19th century, the Rothschild family represented over $6 billion (as of then) and spoke of their "endless assets" (page 121). They worked through August Belmont to gain control of many banks here during the Panic of 1837 ("Our Crowd," Stephen Birmingham, 1967). One of the Rothschild marriages was Aline, daughter of Baron Gustave Rothschild, to opium dealer and banker, Sir Albert Sassoon in 1887. The British Crown knighted him in 1872; the family was known as "the Rothschilds of the Far East." The Sassoons were originally from Mesopotamia but migrated to India where they became leaders of the opium trade and among the founders of Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank---HSBC, Silver Users Association members! The Sassoons were also powers in the Bank of China; Bank of China & Japan; Sassoon Banking Company of China & London; Imperial Bank of Persia; and British Burma Petroleum.

Baron Astor, who was an aide to the British Viceroy of India, 1911-1914 (where opium was still being grown), later became chairman of the London Times and director of Hambros Bank, linked to the Bank of England, and a Rothschild family friend. Of note is the fact of the recent N.M. Rothschild prediction that silver could fall to $4.90 an ounce in 2004! Biographer Ferdinand Lundberg called the Astors "the most influential journalistic family in the world" ("America's 60 Families," 1937, page 259; Astors backed Democratic party-page 454---and married into British Royal family as of 1929---page 14). Sir Rupert Hambro of that bank today (2004) chairs the Silver Trust, a London silversmith's organization (more price-chiseling, price-gouging silver users). The Astors today are leading operators in the British Empire finance cartel and are well acquainted with all the Dukes, Lords, Barons, and so forth, of Britain, and the old European Royal families. The Astor Hotel in Hong Kong, once hub of the opium and heroin trade, has luxury suites for up to $3600 per evening. Hambros Bank used to own, 1957-1973, what is now known as Scotia-Mocatta, the bullion subsidiary of the Bank of Nova Scotia, which Butler named as one of the "Silver Managers;" they too are members of the Silver Users Association. The Bank of Nova Scotia and the London Times (Astors) have a long relationship. Various sources claim that certain of the world's biggest banks launder money for the global narcotics trade. What is beyond dispute is that they all oppose gold, and especially silver as money.

As for Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, it had correspondent relations with Chase National Bank, in which the Astors held an interest and were directors. This was one of the New York banks which along with the Morgan banks in 1878 boycotted the newly issued silver dollars. Acting as a propaganda source for the greedy bankers was The Nation, November 17, 1887, which on page 390 said, "the silver dollars will become an inert hoard." Too bad the jerk who wrote that didn't see the Wall Street Journal, February 8, 1980, page 4, which said the General Services Administration expected to sell 923,287 Morgan dollars at prices up to $65 each! In the early 1960's Chase led the charge to abolish our last silver coins. Also concerning Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, we find that when China went off its circulating silver standard in 1935, much of the remaining silver was deposited with Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank (see "Hong Kong Xianggang," 1988, Viking Press, Jan Morris, pages 268-269). From Cygni Communications, North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, we find portions of a book by Rolf Witzsche posted on the web (science.rolf-witzsche.com) entitled, "Roots In Universal History." Concisely, page 73 mentions that the Chinese city of Canton is said to have paid the British 6 million silver dollars in a "voluntary ransom" to avoid attack during the first Opium War (1839-1842), but after the payment was handed over, the British artillery opened fire anyway; and that British opium imports into China reached 105,508 chests in 1880, keeping nearly 40 million Chinese in a state of desolate addiction (page 74) and causing every last one of them to die before their time. The British arrested Gandhi, the world famous Indian nationalistic leader, in 1921 for agitating against the opium trade. In 1920 British financier Lord Inchcape (1852-1932), directed the British India Commission to continue opium production. Small wonder that he held interest in Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, and controlled Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company, over which opium was shipped. Other names associated with the British East India Company and its opium trade were names we still see today like Jardine. American counterparts to these spidery London financiers have maintained a battalion of prostitute economists, telling us for generations that silver has no value. The Commercial & Financial Chronicle, July 11, 1936, page 206, reported that Occidental College (Los Angeles) professor John Parke Young as saying---

"Very definitely, silver has been harmful to the United States, acquiring a metal for which it has no need and which no one wants. Silver cannot be said to support paper money, because certificate holders have no desire for redemption in silver. The issuance of the new money represents a direct inflation of the currency."

No one wants silver and no one needs it! If his nose grew like Pinocchio's, Rand McNally would have put him on its maps! Silver backed money is "inflationary;" but unbacked Federal Reserve notes are NOT! What in the HELL can any reasonable person say to that? Like, water is bad for you, but wood alcohol isn't? There was a frantic STAMPEDE of silver certificate holders who wanted redemption in silver, when in the 1960's a redemption deadline was set! Young was a member of the anti-precious metals American Economic Association (founded 1888), with his fellow traveler Edwin Kemmerer, who was its president in 1926. Turns out that Young was on an economic fellowship (1919-1920) under Princeton economics professor Edwin Kemmerer (1912-1928), and he was also a member of the American Commission of Financial Experts to China in 1929, which was led by Kemmerer. Professor Young attended the deadly Bretton Woods conferences (1943-1944), which did so much to add banker corruption to the money system. Kemmerer was a member of the Bankers Club (Manhattan) and was a director of United States & Foreign Securities Corporation, later headed by Douglas Dillon, the anti-silver Treasury Secretary (1961-1965) who helped end our silver coinage! The central banks of Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru were set up with consultation from Kemmerer! Kemmerer authored "The A.B.C.'s of the Federal Reserve System" (1918) and served from 1937 through the late 1940's as president of the Economists National Committee on Monetary Policy, which habitually threw darts at our silver coinage, urging its abolition! The American Economic Association, based at Vanderbilt University (similar to Astors and also intermarried with British wealth; one Vanderbilt was a director of 73 corporations) boasts 18,000 members; Ben Bernanke of the Federal Reserve (2004-2018) is editor of its journal, the American Economic Review, and Ellen McGrattan of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis is on its executive committee. Watch for them to put out a "scholarly" article as to why their "created" currency monopoly needs no backing from gold and silver! Business Week, July 30, 1955, page 136 quoted Princeton economics professor Lester Chandler as saying---

"Silver adds nothing to the soundness of our monetary system, and the silver so used is not available for other purposes."

Here we see the combined viewpoint of the paper money faction and the silver users---silver isn't real money (unbacked paper is); and the users want all silver for themselves. It figures, then, that this louse Chandler was deputy chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, 1958-1959. As I've documented before, Federal Reserve types detest silver being called "money." If it's something of innate worth that they can't create, or have a monopoly control over, they don't want you calling it "money." It's so bitterly ironic then, that they say gold and silver backers are "greedy!" They're just identical to the shady old Bank of the U.S. with its fraudulent unbacked notes. Chandler, author of "Benjamin Strong, Central Banker" (1958), served as vice president of the banker propagandist American Economic Association in 1954. With a Ph.D. from Yale in 1954, he was influenced by Yale economics professor William Sumner (see "Silver Wars And Silver Surprises," archives) who was a rabid critic of silver money! The same Business Week article which quoted Chandler, editorializing for their banker friends, called silver money "unsound" and "inflationary!" Just look at all the full-page ads of the big New York and London banks in that magazine---the anti-silver crowd, who since then, turned against gold also! All we need is electronic credit money, and a system by which we can all be tracked on a 24-hour basis, cradle to grave, and the banker conspiracy is complete. They must hate what Hugo Salinas Price is doing to have silver remonetized in Mexico, and running to the bathroom over monetary discussions about gold and silver in the New Hampshire state legislature, taking place now!

Today HSBC Bank, Silver Users Association member, with world headquarters in London, operates in 81 countries. Narcotics black markets exist in most, if not all, those jurisdictions. Does HSBC have any involvement, considering their origins? Those wishing more information can read, "Dope Inc., Britain's Opium War Against the U.S," 1979 by Nancy Spannaus. Also interesting is the fact of HSBC's 1999 acquisition of Republic National Bank of New York---a big gold and silver dealer---and the manner in which Edmund Safra, kingpin of Republic National, was found dead in Europe. HSBC also assisted Barrick Gold to acquire mineral properties in the South American El Indio district. The presidential Bush family holds some Barrick (which could be a plus for metals investors if he's re-elected). Other holders include Brian Mulroney, former Canadian Prime Minister said to be responsible (among other injuries) for loss of over 300,000 Canadian jobs through support of North American Free Trade Agreement. Among the rogues-gallery at Barrick we also find Karl Pohl, formerly with Germany's Bundesbank, and the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements. Rumors persist that HSBC launders narcotics money, in addition to other well-known Wall Street and London entities. A search query on Alta Vista for HSBC + opium returned 199 results!

Another Silver Users Association member, Union Carbide, was negligently responsible for tens of thousands of poison gas death in Bhopal, India, beginning on December 2, 1984. That silver user since merged with another Silver Users Association member, Dow Chemical, a notorious polluter that has been hit with God knows how many lawsuits. Warren Anderson, then CEO of Union Carbide, became the most hated man in Indian history. To give them a line to throw at him from "Gunfight At OK Corral" (1957, Kirk Douglas as Doc Holliday)---

"He's no gentleman, he's the son of a yellow-bellied sow!"

And the Silver Users Association also prominently features DuPont, named as the biggest polluter of water sources in North America, and also known as "Merchants of Death" due to their involvement in pushing America into two World Wars. The first, starting in 1914, was fought because Germany was becoming a fierce competitor in world markets against the British Empire. Then the Treaty of Versailles was fastened on Germany at the close of the war, and its terms were so punitive that a second World War was guaranteed. That was exactly the intention of the British-American financier faction who concocted those terms. As Lady Astor said in Life Magazine, December 16, 1940, page 24 (off topic---check out the cover)---

"Thousands of young Americans are longing to get into this war. It is right that they should."

Had conditions not been made so grave in Germany, Hitler could never have risen to power. America is here to fight for the British Empire! Just look at Bush shoulder to shoulder with Prime Minister Tony Blair, with Lord Clitheroe of Yorkshire Bank and Halliburton lurking above them! Before we conclude this research, note also that Warren Delano, grandfather of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), was also an opium trader, though much smaller than Astor. There were also a group of rich families centered around Boston who were in the opium trade, and are alleged to have backed East coast universities. Yale University is named for Elihu Yale, of the British East India Company, who was governor at Fort Saint George in Madras, India. Thousands of Chinese were imported to the West coast to work cheaply on railroads and other projects, and opium use intensified their abject poverty. Congress delayed until 1905 to make opium illegal. Claims exist on the web that the Bush family and similar families linked to Yale University have had connections to narco-trade. In the Silver Users Association, whose interests are complimentary with the British Empire and the paper money crowd, we have firms historically linked to the agonizing deaths and wholesale poisoning of probably over 25 million people since the start of the 19th century. I am not including those blown apart by Du Pont explosives in two World wars! To recognize the users association as an illegal organization in violation of anti-trust laws is the smallest objection to be noted against them! To recognize them as the Silver Raiders who've cheated silver miners, taxpayers and all the mining nations is to recognize the least of their misdeeds. They have left our military personnel without a silver stockpile for protection, as modern warfare cannot dispense with silver. It is not an exaggeration to say we are more vulnerable to incoming land and submarine based warhead-tipped missiles, due to their sucking our silver dry! What will we do for military preparedness without silver, and having sent so much of our industrial base to the former British opium colony, China, will we start to have our military hardware manufactured there also? Business Week, September 29, 1962, page 122 commented---

"Defense contractors must buy 600,000 oz. of silver within the next few weeks just for 10 new batteries being built for the Navy."

We are in a higher-technology world today than in 1962, and silver is needed more urgently than ever, and it cannot come out by asinine price capping, by the COMEX or by the Feds! The fact that this no-stockpile scandal isn't front-page news is testimony to the influence of the users and the paper money crowd, whose character is truly appalling! Having a history as dark as hell itself, the Silver Users Association remains the enemy of real money---silver! As London bookseller Henry Bohn said (1853)---

"Cruelty is the first attribute of the devil."

Onward! For the British Empire and the Queen!
Chinese opium addict = automatic teller machine!
Seize our opium, we bring war to the scene!
Open artillery fire, Royal Marine!

We said if you'd give us the silver, we wouldn't open fire,
Of telling bloody damn lies, we'll never tire,
Dealing with us is like touching a live wire!
We'll go home to England, and sing in the choir!

In the British Empire, might makes right,
Millions of Chinese dying is just trite!
In London all is sweetness and light,
Dukes and Lords at a royal ball tonight!

The opium addict, eyes bulging out of his head,
I take tea and crumpets before I go to bed,
Sooner or later he drops stone cold dead,
For him not one British tear is shed!

Sucking silver out of China, pushing opium over there,
Demonetize silver in America, Rothschild's a billionaire,
Let all the world's little people sink into despair,
We're the world's bankers---you're in our cross-hair!

John Jacob Astor working with us in the opium trade,
Just look at us bankers, we're a real sick parade!
Under titles and dukedoms we masquerade,
Bad legislation in your Congress, you're betrayed!

The old Bank of the U.S., issuing unbacked paper notes,
Cheating the taxpayers with interest rate quotes,
Fraud and theft are what Rothschild promotes,
Astor a big thief, slitting the public's throats!

Feudalistic intermarriages, keeping wealth in the fold,
Cheating the common man round the clock, this plan's real old,
Their nasty economists say paper is wealth, not silver and gold!
Opium, poison gas, war mongering, their satanic outrages unfold!

Their ammo against gold and silver isn't blanks,
Who's in on it? Looks like all the world's big banks!
So off to fight for Britain go the gullible yanks,
Control all presidential candidates with financier pranks!

London financiers, leaders of a group of would-be gods!
Manipulating gold, silver, currencies, and opium pods!
University economists lying for them, getting their nods,
Telling us paper money is wealth, miserable clods!

This banker's war against precious metals,
Is full of poisonous, stinging nettles,
Economist says no, they're flower petals!
But we'll see how the dust settles!

Fortunes founded on opium, super megaton big shots!
Sabotaging silver and gold money, connect the dots,
Economists on board, the Trojan horse trots,
Churning out unbacked paper till it rots!

Silver users say---people who hoard silver are really bad!
But look at silver users crimes---stark raving mad!
No more silver stockpile, America you've been had!
They want you to think silver money was only a fad!

The Silver User's Association, a gargantuan colostomy bag!
They need a horned devil symbol to use as a flag!
Let it read "opium" and "poison gas" on their name tag!
Let all their scandals be broadcast, tongues will wag!

HSBC Bank, member of Silver Users Association,
Abusing millions of Chinese isn't an aberration,
This Users Association has a notorious concentration,
Of companies who cause widespread desperation!

We find Union Carbide with lethal poison gas,
Mega polluter Dow Chemical, snake in the grass,
War monger Du Pont, at the head of the class,
As the silver market reaches critical mass!