THE DEBASEMENT OF COINAGES. 587 



notes became depreciated, and is raging now that silver has under- 

 gone a similar decline. It is true that the situation is not precisely 

 the same, but the principle involved is : the arguments against re- 

 storing a degraded coinage or degrading an established one are sub- 

 stantially the same. 



The object of the Bland Bill and similar measures, though nomi- 

 nally a restoration of a former standai'd, is in fact a debasement of the 

 present one. The value fixed for the United States dollar under the 

 act of 1792 was by accident put below that of the dollars with which 

 it then came into competition. The act provided that the dollar 

 should be of the value of the Spanish milled dollar, and also provided 

 that it should contain 371 grains of pure silver, whereas the Spanish 

 dollar contained 377 grains. This discrepancy resulted from a 

 blunder in assaying the Spanish coin, but was perpetuated until the 

 old silver dollar was abolished. Owing to the unprecedented fall in 

 the price of silver, the real value of 37l grains is now only about 

 ninety cents in the market, a decline which would be a very serious 

 matter if this accidental dollar were still a legal tender and in use in 

 trade ; but fortunately the act of 1873 put it where it is incapable of 

 doing mischief. 



It is one of the compensations of the disordered state of our 

 finances growing out of irredeemable war-issues, that, coin being vir- 

 tually out of circulation, we could put our coinage on the footing 

 aimed at by all great commercial nations, without incurring the loss 

 and distress which such revolutions are apt to involve. And now it 

 is proposed to undo all this, to restore this impaired dollar to its old 

 position, and put upon the nation all the loss and inconvenience which 

 would grow out of such a change. For states of transition are always 

 states of suffering and, were there two or three hundred millions of 

 silver in the hands of the people to-day, the statesman well might 

 hesitate to raise the standard of the old dollar, making it equivalent to 

 the gold one. The load of silver which France is carrying interferes 

 seriously with her efforts to resume on her paper currency, and yet 

 she very propei-ly hesitates to enter upon an experience similar to 

 that which Germany has recently had ; but we, virtually starting anew 

 with our coinage system, with the experience of all the past to light 

 us, are asked to plunge into a quagmire from which we could only 

 emerge after much floundering and defilement ! 



And who is to be benefited by the remonetization of silver ? If 

 remonetization will, as is claimed for it, enhance the price of silver, so 

 that it will make the dollar of 1792 and the gold dollar equal, then 

 the holders of silver and they only will reap the advantage. Is the 

 disposable silver stock of the world held by the class of men into 

 whose pockets the Western voters are anxious to legislate money ? 

 The American mine-owners hold a large amount in the shape of ore ; 

 the German Empire has ninety millions of surplus she would be glad 



