agement of their corporation remained substantially the same from the beginning to the end.

Mr. Welsh and his colleagues deserve the honor which has been awarded to them for the faithful discharge of their trust. Their work was visible to the eye, and has been seen and praised of all men. The labors which wrought out the effective organization of the Commission and Board of Finance from the crude materials of the original act of Congress, and which brought together and installed the riches of the earth in the Exhibition, should also be recogized and rewarded. They have now no visible monument; their brief record is found in the minutes of the Executive Committee, and its official documents and reports, which are "caviare to the general," and will only be known to students and historians. We regret that these records are so meager, for the terse recital of the transactions of the Committee and its sub-committees cannot convey to the mind an adequate conception of the labors and sacrifices of the good and true men who left their families and business affairs to devote themselves to this service of the country. No desire for local popularity, no business interest, or feeling of municipal or state pride, drew Messrs. Beckwith, Boteler, Corliss, Lynch, and their colleagues from their homes, to the discharge of harassing and gratuitous labors. It is the highest eulogy of Mr. Morrell, that he was recognized as their leader by these distinguished citizens; and if we have said anything in his praise, it is intended to do them equal honor.

FREE COINAGE AND A SELF-ADJUSTING RATIO.1

***

*

Le premier devoir des législateurs désormais est de simplifier en abrogéant toutes les lois antérieures dont le maintien complique la urisprudence * matière de monnaie.

surtout én

JOSEPH GARNIER, Sénateur.

ARE we to use both silver and gold as money, or are we to

persist in rejecting one of these metals? is a subject which is daily getting a greater hold of the public mind. Our more intelligent citizens are beginning to realize how necessary is judicious

1A Paper read before the Philadelphia Social Science Association and also at the Annual Meeting of the American Social Science Association, held at Boston, January 14th, 1877, by Thomas Balch, author of "Les Fançais en Amerique pendant la Guerre de L'Indépendance," "International Courts of Arbitration," etc.

legislation concerning this vital matter, and to think that though the Presidency may be a more imminent question, yet the currency is more abiding.

I.

At the meeting of this Association at Saratoga last September, I endeavored, in the debate which followed the essay, to maintain gold and silver money as against gold alone, and argued that the aggregate of the two metals had never exceeded the wants of man, nor could do more than answer to the world's increasing commerce and industrial production, and pointed out the vast usefulness of Silver to France in the payment of the War Fine. Our Secretary has kindly asked me to speak to the subject to-day. I confess, I approach it with much diffidence. There is so much to say concerning it. It is so far-reaching in its effects, for money is the most powerful engine which that complex mechanism called Modern Society wields for its own development or its own destruction.

Moreover, the interest manifested is not merely national, it is international. Sir George Campbell, in his address to the British Association truly said: "the subject was bristling with controversies, both theoretical and practical. The late debate in the French Senate and the law thereupon passed, the communication of the Belgian Minister of Finance and the action of the Chambers, the report of the Dutch Commission and the provisional legislation in Holland, the new measures which the Germans propose with regard to silver, the report to the British House of Commons, (a monument of the zeal, industry and sagacity of the committee,) our own Congressional "Silver Commission," and the House Bill now before the Senate, the numerous pamphlets which come fast and thick in Europe as well as here, are pregnant proofs of how widespread are the difficulties, the disorders, the sufferings which prevail in so many civilized countries." one questions to-day that the présent monetary situation is due to the disturbances in the currency, yet to commence an "investigation of the currency," Professor Price sadly says in his latest work "is to enter a region which may be justly described as Chaos."

2 Athenæum, Sept. 16, 1876.

No

* See an excellent article in the April, 1875, PENN MONTHLY, by Mr. John Welsh, President of the Philadelphia Board of Trade.

Currency and Banking, 1876.

But the investigation must be made. Individual and social welfare; national, commercial, industrial and financial interests depend upon a healthy and abundant monetary supply. Every good citizen, from both selfish and unselfish motives, desires to have the subject elucidated and discreetly dealt with. To arrive at a remedy for present evils, the problem must be clearly stated and logically discussed in a thoughtful and dispassionate spirit. What need of heat or temper? If a study of the currency is already repulsive by reason of its “unendurable jargon," will it be rendered more attractive by introducing into its vocabulary some of those amenities unhappily too common with us? It is to be regretted when a periodical, generally guarded in its tone, denounces the advocates of bimetalic money as "Silver Swindlers." The same periodical lately upheld our act of 1873 by an argument that reminded one of the old Greek sophism of the crocodile, but it was no answer to the article to call its author "a Goldbug."

Yet, as every one should contribute, though in never so small a way, to the correcter understanding of this matter, I venture to say something about one phase of the subject as a question of applied political economy.

The facts or status I take to be, that the ratio between gold and silver has lately been violently disturbed; that this violent disturbance, whether due to an increased production of silver, or to its demonetization by Germany, or to its diminished consumption in India, or to all three partially, caused the panic of 1873, from which resulted the actual, social, commercial and industrial disorders and distress.

If this be true, then the problem for us, who are considering this matter not merely as economists, but as students of Social Science, may be thus formulated:

How can these two metals be held to a normal ratio, in equilibrio, with the maximum of benefit and service to mankind, with the minimum of variation or other detrimental influences?

And of this problem three solutions have been proposed or partially adopted:

I. Single money, with an international gold unit and subsidiary silver coinage: monometalism.

II. Silver and gold money, everywhere convertible at a fixed legal ratio, adjusted and maintained by International Conventions or co-operative legislation; bimetalism.

'Professor Price.

III. Silver and gold money, but in pieces stamped for weight and fineness, exchangeable at their market values; the self-adjusting ratio.

II.

Before looking into the facts or the problem with a view to considering the solution, one point may as well be disposed of, the moral view of the question.

At a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Buffalo, in August last, a report was read by President Barnard, of Columbia College, the concluding portion of which is to be found in the Buffalo Courier of August 29, 1876. In this paper President Barnard sharply dismissed Silver as a money, because it degrades the value of the coinage in the countries where it is so used. The report declared against Double-Money for the following curious reason: "In conclusion, the committee could only add that the existence of a double standard in coinage at any time and anywhere has been a consequence of a provision of Nature, quite accidental, according to which two metals, and only two, possess the properties which fit them, or heretofore fitted them both to be standards of value."

Most of us have doubtless supposed that nothing in nature was "quite accidental." The Evolutionists maintain that by virtue of stringent and austere laws, man, who holds his head so high and esteems himself a little lower than the angels, started from the protoplasm in the slime and ooze of dim and distant ages. The Pantheists teach that "God is in all, and that all is in God,"

"Wie Natur im Vielgebilde

Einen Gott mir offenbart,"

whilst the Christian has been told that even the hairs of his head are numbered, and that not a sparrow falls to the ground without the knowledge of the Creator. Yet this singular doctrine-that the two great instruments of human association and civilization, have, by a " quite accidental" provision of nature, the properties of money this doctrine was cordially greeted by the philosophers who met at Buffalo.

Fortunately for mankind, the committee "reserved to themselves the privilege of going more fully into the subject at a future meeting, should not the questions which it involves, . . . . be in the meantime satisfactorily disposed of."

Buffalo Courier, Aug 29, 1876. The Italics are mine.

We may therefore reasonably expect to see President Barnard "go more fully into the subject," and dispose of it to the great relief of mankind. Those, however, who believe there is nothing "quite accidental" in nature, will probably think that the new supplies of Silver are intended for a similar work and on a grander scale than that wrought by Gold a quarter of a century ago. Mr. Léon Faucher qualified the abundance of gold in the then condition of affairs as absolutely providential.' The London Times, in a remarkable article, said with great force and truth of the discoveries of gold, "like everything which happens naturally, that is, independent of human contrivance, they can have no result other than that of contributing to the march of civilization."

Owing to these supplies, the burthen of great public debts was eased to the tax-paying classes, production and commerce were developed in proportions absolutely amazing. In France, the foreign commerce in 1852 was 30 (thirty) milliards, and in 1872, 72 milliards 140 p. c. What home-industry, what exchange of products, what social movement, what happiness are in these figures! In some countries the prosperity was even greater.10

May we not reasonably ask; has not Silver come from the same hand and for a kindred purpose? Not as a curse, but as a boon to stimulate human aspirations, to further the solidarity of nations, perhaps to develop the Civitas Christiana, that dream of so many great and pious men ?11

III.

A brief outline of the relations between Man and Money as they grew up naturally, and of the modifications introduced by legislation, will be perhaps the best way of getting at the consecutive facts by which we were brought to our present plight.

Money grew out of man's need of some common medium of exchange. It was in a great part the result of the division of labor. In course of time the experience of the larger portion of the human race led men to abandon all other commodities, and agree upon gold and silver as the two whose qualities rendered them The Precious Metals, translated by Thomson Hankey, Jr., 2d Ed. London, 18538 The Times, June 25, 1852.

'Mr. B. Neumann, Economiste Francaise, quoted by Laveleye.

10 La Monnaie Bimetallique, par Emile de Laveleye, Bruxelles, 1876.

"Zwingli, Grotius.