are pursuing a policy which will force England into the monetary use of silver, we shall in fact have taken a step which will force other European nations into its abandonment.

There is nothing in the current relative production and consumption of the two precious metals, either in this country or in the world at large, to induce us to change at this time the policy of the law of 1878. The reports of the directors of our mints, and of Wells, Fargo & Co., agree that there has been no substantial change in the relative production of gold and silver in the United States during the past half-dozen years, and that the absolute production of both has fallen off since the sudden decline of the yield of the Comstock lode. As to the silver production of this country in the future, nobody can safely make predictions.

From my own intimate knowledge of one important field of that production, and from information obtained from those who are best acquainted with other fields, I see no prospect of any large increase in the near future. It is true that new silver mines are constantly discovered, but it is also true that old silver mines are becoming exhausted. It requires a vast application of capital and labor to maintain the production of silver in this country at its present annual amount, which approximates $40,000,000.

In the production of the world, according to estimates based upon the investigations of Soetbeer, the leader of the German gold monometallists, the proportion of gold to silver was the same, comparing the five years ending with 1880 with the five years ending with 1875. No change has occurred since the passage of the law of 1878, except the falling off in the Asiatic demand for silver. We can see that there has been for that falling off a special and temporary cause in the extraordinary famines which have afflicted both India and China. In the last-named empire whole provinces have been depopulated by that scourge, and according to some reports 20,000,000 of the human race have been swept away. Under these circumstances it is reasonable to hope that the

cycle of unpropitious seasons and deficient harvests in Asia has passed, and that in the better times of the future its demand for silver, which has never wholly ceased within historical times, will again increase. As I have already pointed out, small as the Eastern demand has been for the last four years, and especially during the year 1881, it would have been sufficient to have caused a serious scarcity in the London market if the mints of this country had increased the monthly coinage of that metal to $3,000,000.

I think I have shown that at the present rate of coinage there is no possibility of the depreciation of the silver dollar for years to come. There are good grounds for expecting a restoration of the old ratio of relative valuation if we do not ourselves break down the price of silver by arresting its coinage.

There is no reason assigned for suspending the coinage of the silver dollar except the mere possibility that it may depreciate in the future. To guard against that remote and improbable danger we are asked to strike a heavy blow against a great industry and all the ramified interests dependent upon it, and to so depress the price of silver as to strengthen the hands of the gold monometallists of Europe, whose principal avowed grounds of attack upon silver are its actual depreciation and the danger of its further depreciation.

There is nothing in the conditions of business in the United States which invites us to this step. Unless all signs are deceptive, the policy which public opinion enjoins upon the present Congress in respect to the currency is the policy of “a masterly inactivity." It is certain, as a matter of fact, that financial and industrial prosperity and the coinage of silver commenced and have progressed together. It is no time for tampering with the currency, and there is a decided public opinion against trying experiments, when all the business interests of the country are enjoying an unprecedented prosperity.

There is no indication that the monetary circulation of

the United States is too large, or that constant additions to it will not be required as we advance in wealth, population, and exchanges. The sure test of an excess of currency is such a rise of prices relatively to the prices of the world as results in an adverse balance of foreign trade and a drain of specie to go abroad. We are not experiencing any such rise of relative prices.

In conclusion, I submit to the Senate that all the circumstances of the times enjoin upon us the duty of a conservative and cautious policy. We are in a good situation to wait the course of events; a hasty step may involve us in irretrievable disasters. Time will clear up points now doubtful. The country is in no humor for currency agitation, and the existing situation calls for none.

GOLD AND SILVER AS STANDARDS OF

VALUE.

From the North American Review, of October, 1883.

In the contest, which has been waged for a number of years, between the advocates of monometallism and bimetallism, it has become apparent that the majority of the people of this country desire that silver, as well as gold, should be coined, at least to the limited extent provided for by the act of 1878. They desire it, not for the purpose of inflating the currency, nor for the purpose of benefiting certain sections of the country in which silver mining constitutes an important and profitable industry, as has been so often derisively charged by the monometallists, but for the broader and more equitable purpose of preserving uniformity in the value of metallic money, and more especially to prevent such a contraction of the total volume of money as would fatally depress prices, pervert the equity of contracts, ruin debtors and tax-payers, aggrandize moneyed capital, and impoverish the masses of the people.

Justice to all classes of people-to the poor and the rich, to the laborer and the capitalist, to the debtor and the creditor-requires that we should so legislate as to preserve for money, as nearly as possible, a uniform value, or, in other words, a steady purchasing power. The money which the borrower should pay the lender, at the maturity of the debt, should be of the same value as that which was received when the debt was made.

Since the passage of the act of 1878, by the coinage of silver, the United States have added about $150,000,000 to the metallic money of the country. That it has not thereby created an inflation of the currency, and that none is threat

ened, but that the volume of money is too small rather than too large, is shown by a tendency to falling prices.

The address of Mr. Goschen, April 8, 1883, before the London Institute of Bankers, upon the increase of the purchasing power of gold, or, in other words, upon the fall in the gold price of commodities, within ten years, has excited lively discussion in Europe and in this country. The criticisms upon his address have been varied and numerous; but none of his critics have denied his proposition that prices have fallen, or that Mr. Goschen is right in assigning, as one of the conspicuous causes of the fall, the increased demand for gold arising from the demonetization of silver by several countries. They have not, so far as I have observed, gone beyond the attempt to show that Mr. Goschen has somewhat overstated the new demand for gold, and that the other causes for a fall in prices are more numerous than he supposed them to be.

The London Times, which, upon the whole, does not regard the fall of prices as a thing to be deprecated, or as affording an occasion for measures to relieve the constriction of gold, says in its issue of May 7, 1883:

"Prices at the present day are, on the whole, lower than they were ten years ago. They are as low, or nearly as low, as they were in the old days before the great gold discoveries had been made. It is certain, as Mr. Goschen says, that prices of commodities are affected by changes in the volume of the circulating medium in which they are expressed. Germany, Italy, and the United States have, during the past ten years, been absorbing in their currency more gold than the available supply. They have taken between them not less than £200,000,000, and a large part of this has necessarily been obtained at the expense of the general stock. The result has been that, as the stock of gold has diminished, the price of gold has gone up; or, in other words, that the prices of commodities have fallen. It is impossible that so large a drain of gold can have failed to affect prices. Mr. Goschen must be admitted to have made out his case thus far. He has laid his finger on a cause, and it is demonstrably a vera causa, capable of the effect he assigns to it. But an examination of his figures will show that other causes have been concurrently at work."

It is difficult to compute the exact rise and fall of the general range of the prices of commodities, and persons desirous