62 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



Mr Everett, and others, and the theories and arguments 

 of its supporters were rebutted very fully by Sir Robert 

 Giffen, Lord Farrer, and other experts. 



It is unnecessary to attempt, in this report, to sum 

 up the contentions and illustrations for and against 

 bimetallism presented to us. 



It will be sufficient to say that I am unable to agree 

 with many of the views expressed by some of my 

 colleagues in their memorandum on this subject, and 

 that a consideration of the evidence leads me to gener- 

 ally support the views laid before us by Sir Robert 

 Giffen, both as regards the relation of the fall of prices 

 to contraction or expansion of standard money, and as 

 to the impracticability and undesirability of a double 

 standard. 



While grave doubt attaches to most of the bimetallic 

 interpretation of past events, still graver doubt seems to 

 me to rest on the view bimetallists take of the probable 

 course of events in case their proposal was carried out. 

 I cannot be satisfied by the evidence of Professor 

 Foxwell and others that there would be a better equili- 

 brium and more stability of prices under the new system, 

 even if a ratio of the metals could be definitely fixed. 



And when it is admitted that the period of transition 

 may lead to so much confusion and perturbation of 

 business that it may be advisable to adopt what is 

 called a " climbing ratio," and to make the transition by 

 successive and periodic revisions of the ratio of the two 

 metals, each such revision necessarily involving the 

 modification of millions of contracts, such an under- 

 taking would seem not unlikely to disturb and harass 

 commerce, and the commerce of agriculturists as well 

 as of others, and to introduce anarchy and confusion 

 and panic into business relations. Such results could 

 not fail to be ruinous to agriculture, even if at the outset 

 there was a temporary rise of prices, just as inflated paper 

 currency, in America and elsewhere, has usually developed 

 a feverish expansion of spurious prosperity, inevitably 

 followed by disastrous reaction and widespread bank- 

 ruptcies. 



