562 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 



percentage of workers are unemployed. Absurdity in argument 

 ■can surely go no further. Speculation and over-trading are next 

 set forth as the originating cause of the depression, and, because in 

 ■some of our commercial panics they have been chiefly instrumental 

 in precipitating the catastrophe, there is some reason in attributing 

 it to this source. In these colonies especially this has been the 

 case, as the inflated land speculations had the effect of first 

 •concealing, and afterwards, in their collapse, accentuating the 

 approaching crisis. That crisis, nevertheless, as surely though 

 perhaps less rapidly would have overtaken us. The depreciation 

 of all securities, and of all our staples, when measured by gold 

 could not therefore fail to disturb the stability of financial institu- 

 tions whose liabilities were payable in gold. 



Countries dependent for their development on the expenditure of 

 foreign ca2)it^l are sure to feel the pressure first, as Avell as most 

 acutely. While the producers and manufacturers and land- 

 owners of Europe are suff'ering from the low price ot their produce, 

 we, who depend altogether on the profitable export of our staples, 

 cannot fail to suffer in a higher degree. Numerous other causes 

 have been advanced to account for the depression, such as compe- 

 tition, labor agitations, strikes, high rents, misuse of land, inflation 

 of credit, and the like ; but all of them are more the result than 

 the cause, and individually they have existed in good times without 

 producing any injurious result. 



WARNING. 

 We have said that some economists of note have opposed a 

 return to bimetallism because they disbelieve the result to Avhich 

 their own theories of the currency must have led them. Others, 

 however, such as Seyd, Wolowski, Lavaleye, boldly j^roclaimed 

 their conclusions that the result of the disruption of the standard 

 would be disastrous in every sphere of industry. But to conserva- 

 tive England theirs was as " the voice crying in the wilderness "; 

 practical men of business, financiers, paid little attention to the 

 warning. It sounded too theoretical for them The report of the 

 Bankers' Union of Paris says — " Their abstention from it is a 

 matter for regret, and it is high time that agriculturists, bankers, 

 merchants, and tradesmen, should take part in the discussion." 

 Their action alone will be able to command the attention of our 

 legislators, and to bring into the sphere of practical politics that 

 which has been too long an academic question. It is still main- 

 tained by the advocates of gold monometallism that owing to the 

 improved modes of transacting business, through banking facilities, 

 the extension of note circulation, and in consequence of the 

 innumerable instruments of credit now in use, the necessity for a 

 large supply of a metallic currency is done away with, and that as 

 time goes on these instruments Avill still further supersede its use. 

 Facts, however, do not favor these conclusions. The demand for 



