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tion of the amount payable as legal tender, and (2) tlie absence 

 of unlimited coinage — constitute the difference between token 

 and standard money. 



Now from the fact that the Bank of England will always pur- 

 chase bar gold at the price of £3 17s. 9d. per oz., there has 

 arisen the idea that the law thus confers a fixed price upon gold. 

 This is, however, a complete fallacy. The only effect of the 

 operation is to divide bar gold into sovereigns of a given and 

 guaranteed weight and fineness. The transaction in no way 

 fixes the rate at which corn or cotton or iron or any other article 

 or commodity is to be exchanged for gold, but merely that a 

 certain weight of gold shall be made into a certain number of 

 sovereigns. I have shown you that the legal standard of value 

 in England is made of one metal only, and that it is the gold 

 sovereign. 



French Standard of Value. 



In France the standard of value is the franc, and it may be 

 made of either gold or silver. By a law passed in the year 1803, 

 it was enacted that the franc might be made of either gold or 

 silver, and that the value should be in the proportion of 15| of 

 silver to one of gold. The French mint was thrown completely 

 open for the unUmited coinage of silver and gold to all comers. 



Change of Standard by Germany and its Effects. 



Up to the years 1871 and 1873 the standard of value in 

 Germany was silver, but the German Government then deter- 

 mined on a re-coinage, and they changed the standard to a gold 

 basis. The demonetisation of silver by Germany, accompanied 

 as it was by similar steps in Scandinavia and Holland, threw 

 large quantities on the market, and this being coincident with a 

 greatly-increased annual supply from the mines, caused a severe 

 depreciation in the value of the metal. Upon this, France, 

 Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy closed their mints to the un- 

 limited coinage of silver, and practically they have coined gold 

 only since that time. 



Proposals of Bi-metallists. 



Now the proposal of the advocates of Bi-metallism is, that 

 England, Germany, and the United States should mutually agree 

 to establish gold and silver as their standards of value at a fixed 

 and uniform ratio, and that each of them should throw open their 

 mints for the unlimited coinage of both metals at the agreed ratio, 

 and that France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy should con- 

 form to this arrangement. But the advocates of Bi-metalHsm 

 are not agreed amongst themselves what the ratio is to be. 

 Some advocate the French ratio of 1 to 15|-. Some suggest a 



