2 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK ch. 



capital portrait, but from notices in the diary it 

 is manifest that he also achieved the possibly 

 more difficult task of keeping his sitter enter- 

 tained all the while. At its conclusion Sir John 

 is able to write, " He was very pleasant to sit to." 



At this period the Bimetallic controversy was 

 raging with great severity. Bimetallists attri- 

 buted the great fall in prices, of say 30-40 per 

 cent, to a rise in the value of gold. Monometallists, 

 on the contrary, while admitting that there might 

 possibly be a rise of say 5 per cent in the real 

 value of gold, the production having somewhat 

 fallen off, attributed the main fall in prices to 

 improvements in manufacture, diminished cost of 

 transport, and other circumstances affecting the 

 articles themselves. 



Mr. H. Chaplin having made a speech in which 

 he put the argument of the Bimetallists very 

 tersely. Sir John wrote the following letter to the 

 Times : 



High Elms, Down, Kent, 

 Jan. 24, 1893. 



To the Editor of the Times. 



Sir — My friend, Mr. Chaplin, in his address to the 

 Surveyors' Institute last night, stated that all the 

 members of the late gold-silver commission expressed 

 their belief in an appreciation of gold. 



Will you allow me, as one of the Commissioners, to 

 say that, while I think the facts point to some small 

 appreciation — say, 5 per cent. — I can by no means admit 

 that there has been so great a change as is stated by 

 Mr. Chaplin ? . . . 



He estimated it, in his speech at the great meeting on 

 agricultural depression, and again last night, as being 

 30 per cent, since 1874. 



Will you allow me to put to him this test ? Sir 

 Richard Paget at the Agricultural Conference quoted 

 official figures to show that during the last 15 years 



