CURRENCY. 



235 



excess of the American total over the British, 

 92 points, was four times what it was over the 

 Irish team in the preceding match, although 

 the shooting of the British team showed a 

 remarkable improvement. 



The aggregate score made at all the ranges 

 by each marksman in both days' shooting was 

 as follows, the highest possible number being 

 450 points : 



THE AMERICAN TEAM. 



THE BRITISH TEAM. 



In the first match for this trophy, at Creed- 

 moor, last year, the following aggregate scores 

 were made: 



Among the causes which contributed, prob- 

 ably in no small degree, to the success of the 

 Americans, were the superiority of their breech- 

 loading rifles over the English muzzle-loaders, 

 and the supine position which they all adopted, 

 while three of the British team chose to shoot 

 lying prone. 



CURRENCY. The question of specie re- 

 sumption is at present closely connected in the 

 public mind with the subordinate silver question 

 i. e., whether silver and gold together shall 

 be readopted as the legal currency of the United 

 States, or gold alone. In the latter case, it is 

 feared that not enough of the metal can be ac- 

 cumulated to restore the specie basis and fulfill 

 the promises of the Government; and in the 

 former, it is feared that all the gold will flow 

 out of the country to Europe and be replaced 

 by the silver of Germany, and, possibly, of 

 France and her monetary allies ; thus leaving 

 America with a currency which had been dis- 

 carded in other countries, and whose value, re- 



garded as a mere article of merchandise, might 

 sink indefinitely. Thus the uncertain attitude 

 of the nations of Europe that is to say, of 

 France and the other bi-metallic countries 

 has greatly complicated the question of Ameri- 

 can resumption. In Europe public opinion is 

 divided upon the silver question. In France 

 and Belgium the Governments and the principal 

 bankers, as well as the leading newspapers, are 

 in favor of preserving the bi-metallic system ; 

 and in Holland and Austria public opinion is 

 against demonetization. Messrs. Cernuschi in 

 France, Laveleye in Belgium, and Samuel Smith, 

 president of the Liverpool Board of Commerce, 

 in England, are earnest agitators for an inter- 

 national convention to restore the dual cur- 

 rency. The opinions of the former, who is the 

 leader of the school, are given below. 



Henri Cernuschi, a Parisian banker, who is 

 a devoted advocate of an international com- 

 pact to preserve the bi-metallic system, was in 

 Washington in February for the purpose of 

 offering testimony before the congressional 

 joint monetary commission. He asserted the 

 opinion that "money is a value created by 

 law ;" that the monetary value of the precious 

 metals was imparted to them by the govern- 

 ments, while their purchasing power varied 

 according to the quantity in use as money; 

 and that their usefulness in the arts did not 

 lend them any part of their value as a medium 

 of exchange. He held that if the double stand- 

 ard should be adopted, according to a uniform 

 relative valuation of the two metals in Europe, 

 America, and India, "the effect would be that 

 every variation, every perturbation, in the rel- 

 ative value of gold and silver, would be for- 

 ever impossible. The quantity produced of the 

 one or of the other of the metals has nothing 

 to do with the relative value of the two metals. 

 The only cause which produces variation in 

 the relative value of gold and silver is that 

 which is shown in the laws of the different 

 countries." He adduced historical evidence 

 to the effect that the sudden influx of large 

 quantities of the two metals by turns into Eu- 

 rope, after the discovery of America, had no 

 effect on their relative values ; neither did the 

 California and Australian gold discoveries, 

 which increased the production of gold five- 

 fold. The change in the relative price of gold 

 and silver from 1 : 10-12 in the sixteenth cen- 

 tury to 1 : 15 at the present time, he ascribed 

 to the mint-regulations which formerly im- 

 posed a higher rate of seigniorage and bras- 

 sage upon silver than upon gold, relatively to 

 their value. From the fact that foreign gold 

 coin could be more cheaply melted and re- 

 coined in the different countries, that was the 

 kind of money usually exported to pay foreign 

 debts; different nations were in this manner 

 drained of their gold coin successively, and 

 were induced to alter their mint-valuation in 

 favor of gold to secure the reimportation of 

 that metal. The gradual appreciation of gold 

 from this cause has ceased in late time*, be- 



