Effect of Duties on Imports upon the Value of Gold. 83 



Leaves as the natural value 2, 532, o8C, 666 



Value of farm products (exportables) 2,447,538, 6G8 



Natural value of both. $4,980,125,324 



Divide the tariff element in the valuation of importables by 

 the total natural value of importables and exportables added 

 together as above, gives about 4i per cent, as the average ad- 

 vance in prices and the true depreciation of our gold. Lest 

 this result should appear too startling, it should be remarked 

 that this is the true depreciation from the absolute free trade 

 standard, or, normal state of commerce. By this rule, the 

 present depreciation is about 83 per cent, below what it would 

 be under a strictly revenue tariff, averaging say 15 per cent. 



This explains how it is that the country has been able, for 

 the last four or five years, to float such an enormous amount 

 of paper so nearly at par with gold ; when, in 1857, only about 

 twelve years before the gold premium settled down to about 

 its present figure, two hundred and fourteen millions of paper 

 was sufficient to drive all the gold out of the country and 

 produce a general supension of specie payments. Now, the 

 paper volume is seven hundred and fifty millions, and has 

 been for years past, and at an average discount of only about 

 twelve per cent. Many of our statesmen, or rather I should 

 say politicians, pretend to believe that this is the result of the 

 national growth and developement of the country. But no 

 rational man can believe that the country, in twelve years, 

 has advanced three hundred per cent, in population, wealth 

 and exchanges, with four of those years devoted to the most 

 destructive war of modern times, when about twenty per cent, 

 has been the usual advance in a decade, in peaceful and pros- 

 perous times. 



I am aware that this law by which gold is depreciated by 

 duties on imports, seems to conflict with the general law 

 which causes gold to flow from where it is worth less to where 

 it is worth more ; for, we have seen that, pending the adjust- 

 ment of the volume of money to the forced increase of average 



