O.—The general destruction of paper currency. П.—The replacement of paper with Gold in England in 1819-'21. AVith the exception of 1) and G, which were comparatively neutral, ;ill of these acts of monetary legislation tended to bring about a rise in Gold as compared with Silver, but in the case of E this tendency was limited to bringing Gold up to the fixed price of 15.09. For any movement beyond 15.69, E tended to keep Silver up and to keep Gold down. According to the statement of De Galonné (see page 258), Spain, in 1779, raised her ratio 7 per cent. The fact seems doubtful, but if this Ы- true the legislation of Spain tended to throw the weight of Spanish demand in favor of a rise in the ratio of many per cent, under auy circninstances, and tended to fix Gold to Silver at 10 to 1. This supposed fact justified De Galonné, as he maintained, in raising the French ratio from 14| to 15¿. It was a long time before this new legislation of De Galonnc's, although it exerted influence over a metallic stock which was greater than that of any other nation, had its full efl'cct «•n the market price of Gold. The 15i of 1785 was a radically different thing from the 15i of 1803. Goinage was not free, and only old French (.'oins were recoined. Moreover, political events and the issue of paper Money presently stopped all Goinago of Gold and reduced the Goinage of Silver. It is therefore in accord with the views heretofore stated that Gold, which was at about 15 in Taris in 1785 (see page 25'J), and which was rated at 14J m 1700 (see page 281), should not have risen to 1ГЦ- until after the passage of the law of 1803 (sec page 303). lint in England the rise above 15.21 did occur in 17!>S; it was this which caused Silver to be brought to the To wer to be corned (see page 340). ITciiceforth Silver the world over was proscribed as a means of Money payment in England, while Gold was the more sought. Already the blow which the law of 1798 and '99 had struck, for Gold and against Silver, had made itself felt upon opinion, and in all probability it strengthened the hands of those who in 1803 preferred, as Galonné had in 1785, to put the ratio high enough that they might be on the safe side (see page 202). In emerging, in 1803, from the feudal condition of Coinage, France, by making Goinage free at the mint rate of 15.09, brought the entire equalizing power of her great stock of the metals to bear upon their ratio, and thus tended to raise Gold permanently to 15.09. The next two decades saw the general withdrawal of paper Money, and closed with the contraction of prices in England brought about by the resumption of cash payments in Gold. This increase of legislative demand for Gold naturally tended to raise its value relatively to Silver, while the general contraction of currency, accentuating the etl'ect of a serious diminution, noted since 1810, of the annual yield of the miiSfs, tended to cause a general fall of prices, and thus an increase of the рш» i-hasing power of both metals, but especially of Gold. It was here thar the perfected Bi-metallic system of France, controlling as it did so 8. Ex. 58 15 great a stock of metal, exerted its action to enable resumption of payments iii England to be achieved with comparative success. Coinage in France, which at one time tended to raise Gold, D"tended to prevent it from rising. A large proportion of the Gold England needed for resumption came from France, and in sending" France parted with a large proportion of her own stock. Bat with bw free Coinage of Silver, she called the entire body of Silver in the vr<.»r!-i to the aid of European business to steady the exchanges, and replann.: with Silver the Gold which she lost, she maintained for the connu- •-: benefit a comparative steadiness in general prices. The forces set ,.: work by England's anti-Silver legislation were thus opposed, ami :a part neutralized, by French legislation in an opposite sense, substitn: ing Silver for Gold, while England, refusing to receive Silver, substituai Gold for paper. But a residue of influence remained; the Bi-metallic legislation • -:* France did not completely neutralize the Mono-metallic legislation • f England. The following estimate of that influence may be of interest. It oi>n-from the pen of Professor Hoffmann, to whom I have lately alluded, •>; of the best men who have devoted attention to monetary question* his country. In 1832, he wrote (in his Drei Aufsätze über das MÜ.l¿ wesen, Berlin, 1832) as follows: The tacts before mentioned may serve as evidence how slight the flnetnariom :to which the price of Gold is subjected through an increase or diminution of • employment. In the period of a single year, namely, 1821, the Bank of England drew frocx t:* Money markets of the whole world of trade a mass of 2a7,2GG English troy po*x>d» • . (¡old, 22 karats fine, equal to 332,320 marks of pure Gold, for the purj>*so of :r- forming them into English Gold Coins, \vhich were to serve to carry on a tn»i :.' for twenty-four years had been carried on not with Gold but with paper. This mass was greater than four times the annual production from all ibf kij "Gold mines of the earth at the time of their fullest productiveness, before tlic bn **.: out of tho disturbances in Central and South America. This mass wait tokra o« i the circulation in the Money markets at a timo when tho mines, which hod fom т.у liven the most famous aud fertile, had already for a series of rear* Ь«*п i*fT« r _ . very much smaller yield. It was at the time a new demand to which this юл(¡ol<l w;is to 1« applied. Every other hitherto customary demand for Gold ГРЯИ-by ite aide unaltered. No one of them, so far as is kuowu, was at th»t time Tim curious reader will have detected by the side of the жшгкЬи»*tin« pithy characterization of the Prussian statesman a defect of аи.Г hin of facts which havo lately become familiar. IJoflmuun is content with describing this marvelous steadier (ii ild in opposition to the obvious requirements of tlie law of я. nntl demand, and leaves the reader to infer that this comparative steadiness is due to some incomprehensible quality in the yellow metal. The reason why he fails to account for it himself is, however, unconsciously revealed by him in his conscientious analysis of the state of existing demand. He says every other demand for Gold remained by the side of England's new demand unaltered; no one of existing demands, so fur as it is known, was contemporaneously diminished. And yet the demand for Gold in Double Standard countries Î What sort of a demand was it Î It was something entirely different from this new English demand. The new English demand was a demand for Gold under any circumstances without limit of Silver price. The demand of the Double Standard countries, on the contrary, was a demand for Gold with a Umit of price гл Silver, Their demand in the sense of the desire of Frenchmen to use existing French Coins was a demand which could to a considerable extent be satisfied by giving them Silver Coins, old or new, in exchange for their Gold, and the Silver Coins were easily obtainable at the current ratos. As far as the mintage of new Coins is concerned, the demand of the United States was a demand for Gold at the price of 15 or less. The demand of France for the mintage of new Coins was a demand for Hold at a price of 15.69 or less. When Gold rose in the United States to 15 plus the cost of transportation to England, or in France above the rates of 15.69 with the same addition, the demand for Gold for Coinage ceased to exist, a demand for Silver arose in its place, and the demand of commerce for Gobi Coin in circulation was reduced to a minimum which was unimportant in comparison. It is thus apparent how far "every other demand for Gold remained by the side of England's new demand" unaltered; and how far it could rightly be said that " no one of existing demand was contemporaneously diminished." "So far as was known," Ilofmann was right. It was what he did not know that would have supplied the key to the problem which so rightly interested him. The key which he kicked was the Nature of Bi-metallic Legislation, which automatically altered and diminished the demand for Gold ¡u proportion a.s England's new demand raised the Silver price of Gold above 15 or 15.69. To return to the question propounded at the outset, it should l>e np] »rirent that the active forces which brought about the. rise of Gold bet we«n 1780 and 1830 were a succession of legislative acts inspired by a narrow, shortsighted policy, which succeeded only in complicating the monetary situation in the different states without achieving a substantial gain; for who could really gain by having Gohb at 15.80 instead of 14.64 Î And ¡Uso that a further rise of Gold was prevented by the equalizing influence of Bi-metallic Legislation, notably in France, which possessed an exceptionally large stock of metal, and hence a proportionately prep«"'" derant influence upon the fortunes of the Precious Metals. MARKET RATES OF SALES OF GOLD IX HAMBURG, 1700-171Й. It is a strange illustration of the slowness with which monetary science perfects itself that no one has thus far seconded the faitliful b'--r with which Dr. Soetbeer, iu 1850, completed his "Suggestions and Material for determining questions of Money and Banking, with special r»: erence to Hamburg/" by writing a similar history of the ratio <>f :' • Pi-ecious Metals iu the great Markets of Paris or of London. FaOmz this, Dr. Soetbeer has found himself compelled in appending to his pr*at work on the statistics of the Productiou of the Precious Metals (1*7!' a short examination of their market ratio to reprint alone his table* f.c Hamburg, given to the public a quarter of a century earlier. It is probable, however, that the same certainty will be attained by into the records of London or of Paris as can be assumed concerning the data furnished by Professor Soetbeer. The Ilambnrg tabk-s .,rbased upon official quotations, recorded under the direction of th* ¿fa* ','- Is Vorstand of the city, twice a iceck since IGST. The average for л у »--л-. which is based upon exchanges made twice a week throughout they»-::.-, enjoys, of course, a solidity of foundation which it will be difficult fat tb> commercial records of other cities to surpass. Siuce 1ЯЗ.Ч, down. TLLondon quotations have been recorded with great care, and тЫ-у i> adopted after that date by Professor Soetbeer, in the place of the Hamburg quotatious. I reproduce here only the yearly average« from to 1832. Tablet qfikt areragtrait* ofexckamgt of Gold to А/иг » ПатЬ*г$. |