i88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



demnity* to adopt gold as the standard of her metallic coinage sys- 

 tem — a policy which France would probably have adopted in 1870, 

 had not war intervened — and that subsequently induced other coun- 

 tries to follow the example of Germany. But it can not be doubted 

 that the motive in general which prompted the action of Germany 

 in 1873, and which to-day enrolls so many of the best of the world's 

 thinkers, financiers, and merchants, on the side of gold rather than that 

 of silver in the pending and so-called bimetallic controversy, has been 

 and is a conviction, that the movement in favor of a gold standard, by 

 highly civilized and great commercial nations, is in consonance with 

 the spirit of the age ; that it was a necessity for the fullest development 

 of production and traffic, and the same in kind which prompts to the 

 substitution, regardless of cost, of new machinery for old, if even the 

 minimum of gain can be thereby effected in the production and distribu- 

 tion of commodities. It may, however, be urged that granting all that 

 may be claimed respecting the superiority of gold over silver as a stand- 

 ard of value and a medium of exchange, there is not a sufficiency of 

 gold to supply the wants of all who may desire to avail themselves of 

 its use for such purposes ; and therefore, any attempt to effect innova- 

 tions in former monetary conditions would be impolitic because likely 

 to be generally injurious. But this would not be considered as an ar- 

 gument of any weight if pleaded in opposition to the whole or partial 

 disuse of any other form of tool or machine in order that some better 

 tool or machine might be substituted. That in such a case there would 

 be an advantage to those who could afford to have and use the new, 

 and a corresponding disadvantage to those who could not, may be 

 admitted ; but what would be the future of the world's progress, if the 

 use of all improvements was to be delayed until all to whom such use 

 would be advantageous could start on terms of equality ? 



If, therefore, the above premises are correct ; if certain of the lead- 

 ing states of the world have given a preference to gold over silver in 

 their trade, and have selected a single in place of a former double 

 standard of value — not by reason of the adoption of any abstract 

 theory or desire for experimentation, but rather through a determina- 

 tion to put themselves in accord with the new conditions of produc- 

 tion and distribution that have been the outcome of inventions and 

 discoveries during the last quarter of a century — then the inference 

 is warranted, that all attempts to enforce, through any international 

 conference or agreement, any different policy or practice, would be as 

 futile as to attempt to displace through legislation railroads by stage 

 coaches and steamships by sailing-vessels. 



* " It was from tliis source that Germany proposed to help herself before it was too 

 late, and thereby array herself in the rank of commercial states which, having large 

 transactions, chose gold, not merely as the most stable in value of the two metals, but as 

 the best medium of exchange for large payments." — Professor Lacghlin, History of 

 Bimetallism in the United Stales, p. 1S5, 



