174 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



product — measured in dollars of 412^ grains each — has been in ex- 

 cess of $1,250,000,000, and most of it has passed into circulation as 

 coin, or lies piled up in national depositories awaiting any popular de- 

 mand for its employment ; * and the greater number of the daily 

 transactions of trade continue to be settled by the use of silver, just as 

 formerly. " If you take," says Mr. Robert Giffen, in his testimony 

 before the British Gold and Silver Commission, 1886, "the fifteen 

 years from 1870, and compare them with the fifteen years before, 

 you will find that the practical diminution for the demand for silver 

 in France, and I suppose it has been the same in other Latin countries, 

 has not been sensible at all." The continually increasing importation 

 of silver into India, China, Burmah, and Japan is conclusive also as to 

 the absence of any restrictions on the use of this metal for coinage 

 purposes in these countries.f In short, all that is now claimed by one 

 of the most distinguished economists who inclines to the view that the 

 monetary use of silver has been artificially restricted, is that its em- 

 ployment for coinage might possibly have been greater if it had not 

 been for the action of the Latin Convention countries. J But it is ob- 

 vious that this opinion must be necessarily a matter of conjecture. 



Again, the world has never made so great a progress in respect 

 to all things material in any equal number of years as it has during 

 those which have elapsed since silver began to decline in price in 

 1873. Never before in any corresponding period of time has labor 

 been so productive ; never has the volume of trade and commerce 

 been greater ; never has wealth more rapidly accumulated ; never 

 has there been so much abundance for distribution on so favorable 

 terms to the masses ; never, finally, would an ounce of silver exchange 

 for so much of sugar, wheat, wool, iron, copper, coal, or of most other 

 commodities, as at present. If the fall in the price of all desirable 

 commodities has been an evil, as not a few seem to believe, it can not 

 be conclusively proved, in respect to even one article, that any such 



* The number of standard silver dollars in the United States in 1879, the year of the 

 redemption of specie payments by the Federal Government, was reported at 35,801,000. 

 The number coined between March, 1878, and August 31, 1887, was 270,200,117, of 

 which 65,336,063 remained at the latter date in the Federal Treasury, after deducting the 

 silver held for the redemption of silver certificates in circulation. The Mint estimate of 

 the silver coin in circulation in the United States in 1886 (dollars and subsidiary) was 

 $308,784,223. 



f During the fifteen years from 1855 to 1870 the annual demand of India for silver 

 was very nearly- £10,000,000. This period embraced the cotton-famine. From 1872 to 

 1875, just before the drop in silver, the amount that India annually received was £3,- 

 000,000. From 1875 to 1880 it was £7,000,000 ; from 1880-'85, £6,000,000; and for 

 1885-'86, nearly £12,000,000. 



X " The suspension of the free coinage of silver by the Latin Union operated not to 

 diminish the actual employment for silver as compared with what had been in existence 

 before 1872, but a possible employment which might have come into existence if the law 

 had not changed." — (See testimony of Mr. Robert Giffen, British Gold and Silver Com- 

 mission, First Report, p. 28 ) 



