2 92 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



press strongly without wounding the national pride of other people, and 

 especially of the Europeans, the international coin will come in a 

 comparatively short time, just as will arrive the international postage 

 stamp, which, by the way, is very badly needed. For the upper classes 

 of all countries, the people who travel, and have to stand the nuisance 

 and loss of changing their money at every frontier, the bankers and 

 international merchants who have to cumber their accounts with the 

 fluctuating item of exchange between commercial centers will insist 

 upon it. All the European nations with the exception of Eussia and 

 Turkey are ready for the change, and when these reach the stage of 

 real constitutionalism in their progress upward, they will be compelled 

 to follow, being already deeply in debt to the French, English and 

 Germans. Japan may be counted upon to acquiesce instantly in any 

 unit agreed upon by the rest of the civilized world. That virile and 

 open-minded people will at once perceive the advantage to themselves 

 in their program of the commercial conquest of China. Their present 

 unit, the yen, will not stand in the way, but will rather assist in the 

 change. 



Consider the increased force of the commercial assault on conti- 

 nental Asia and Africa and the other untamed areas of the globe of 

 an international coin which the half-civilized and barbarous people 

 of the globe found could be used in trading with any of the nations. 

 Asia is called " the sink of silver." Scores of thousands of tons of the 

 white metal in the guise of Indian rupees, Mexican dollars and other 

 coins have disappeared during the last four hundred years among its 

 teeming millions, and the drain still continues at the rate of about 

 3,000 tons per annum. It is the result of sheer force of numbers, 

 coupled with patient industry and frugality. When these people awake 

 fully from their sleep of centuries, and begin to produce and consume 

 with something like the vigor of the western world, they will be capable 

 of overwhelming it with their output of raw material. With what can 

 they be paid? The balance of trade has remained steadily in their 

 favor as far back as records go. We can only at first satisfy a small 

 portion of their demand in goods, for their wants will increase slowly. 

 They know of but one kind of money, namely, silver, and require that 

 inflexibly. The western world has silver in abundance. It is a drug 

 on the market. Why not prepare unitedly to let them have what they 

 desire, and what we can so easily furnish, and at the same time put it 

 in the form of a coin, which, when it became their unit, would guide 

 them along the path of increasing consumption of those articles which 

 they can produce, and in the production of which we can never hope to 

 be able to successfully compete ? 



