238 



CURRENCY. 



immutability of Gresham's law, that the baser 

 money will always expel the better from cir- 

 culation. He showed that making silver coin 

 of the present weight and purity legal tender 

 would have the effect of diminishing all debts 

 9 per cent. He expressed the opinion that a 

 dear measure of value was better for a people 

 than a cheap one. 



In consideration of Mr. Coe's propositions, 

 the convention adopted the following resolu- 

 tions : 



Resolved, That, in the opinion of this Association, 

 the early resumption of specie payments is necessary 

 to the restoration of general prosperity and social 

 progress throughout the nation. 



That the general use of coin the measure of value 

 as formerly will alone secure those certain rewards 

 to labor, and impart that steadiness to the value and 

 price of all property, which are required to stimulate 

 enterprise and give proper encouragement to every 

 useful industry. 



That the time has fully come when an enforced 

 currency an expedient of the war should be grad- 

 ually removed, while all the conditions in the coun- 

 try are most favorable to that end. 



That it is essential to the highest welfare of the 

 American people that their trade and commerce 

 should all be conducted upon the standard of value 

 which the most advanced commercial nations in the 

 world have adopted. 



That the general resumption of coin payment can 

 be best secured and maintained by the cooperation 

 of the Government and the people through the agen- 

 cy of the banks, which is earnestly recommended ; 

 that, by such cooperation, the resources of the coup- 

 try will be most effectually reached, whether in 

 smaller or larger sums, and absorbed into the bonds 

 of the Government; and the present bountiful har- 

 vest, and increasing mechanical and manufacturing 

 production of the nation, will thus contribute to re- 

 demption. 



That this great end can be secured, with the co- 

 operation of the people, by means already provided 

 for by law. 



The convention expressed its sense on the 

 silver question in the following declaration: 



Jiesohed, That, in the opinion of this convention, 

 silver money, as a subsidiary currency, is desired by 

 the people, "and that its free but not enforced use 

 will greatly aid in restoring the value of our paper 

 money. 



Prof. Stanley Jevons, the English econo- 

 mist, presented an address before the Social 

 Science Association, which held its annual con- 

 vention in Saratoga in the beginning of Sep- 

 tember, in which he opposed the bi-metallio 

 basis for the United States in the most em- 

 phatic manner. He declared that there was 

 no prospect of the project of Cernuschi of a 

 compact between the commercial nations for 

 the establishment of the double standard ever 

 being realized ; that England would never en- 

 tertain the notion of abandoning the gold ba- 

 sis upon which she had prospered since 1816 ; 

 neither would Germany be inclined to abolish 

 the single-metal basis which she had just adopt- 

 ed, without a trial ; while even France had 

 been obliged, from the fluctuating value of sil- 

 ver, to practically follow the course of the 

 other countries, though legally preserving the 

 double standard. America, by returning to the 



bi-metallic system, would impede its internal 

 commerce with an unmanageable circulating 

 medium of uncertain value, which would be of 

 no use for exchange, and voluntarily refuse 

 the advantages derived by the other commer- 

 cial powers from a 15 times lighter currency, 

 which freely circulates between them. The 

 only individuals who could be benefited by 

 America's binding herself in silver fetters 

 would be the few possessors of the silver mines, 

 who are rich enough without the profits which 

 would thus accrue to them. The fear that 

 gold cannot be produced in sufficient quantities 

 to satisfy the monetary requirements of com- 

 merce, he considers as unfounded. There is no 

 reason to suppose that the supplies of this met- 

 al from the mines of California and Australia 

 will diminish. The gold-production is estimated 

 by S. Dana Horton to be double that of silver 

 in value, or 60,000,000 against 30,000,000, and 

 the annual increase in the world's stores of the 

 two metals, respectively, If and 1 per cent. ; 

 while two-thirds of the population of the earth 

 use silver coins exclusively as currency, besides 

 following the habit of melting them down and 

 burying them in the ground, and the other peo- 

 ples also employ silver as a subsidiary curren- 

 cy. Gold is a widely-distributed metal, which 

 can always be found and mined with the exercise 

 of sufficient labor. Silver may not always be 

 as difficult to obtain as it is to-day. It is found 

 in regular mines, and improvements in mechan- 

 ics and metallurgy, may render it so easy to 

 mine and smelt that its value may sink, com- 

 paratively, as much as the value of iron and 

 steel has sunk in late times. If, then, Anglo- 

 Saxon miners operate the silver-beds of Mexico; 

 if the vast stores of silver are laid bare in the 

 mountains of South America, which Humboldt 

 and Murchison predicted would be found there 

 a prophecy which the discovery of the Neva- 

 da leads goes to confirm then the value of the 

 metal as a medium of exchange will be de- 

 stroyed altogether. 



Prof. Jevons sketched a plan for the resump- 

 tion of specie payments. He declared that 

 but little more gold would be requisite for this 

 purpose than was necessary to balance the for- 

 eign exchanges, provided that the amount of 

 notes in circulation be regulated according to 

 the increase or diminution of the gold reserve, 

 after the manner of the Bank Charter Act in 

 England, and of the present German system. 

 The premium on gold was already so low, that, 

 should the gold dollar be made equal in value 

 with the five-franc piece, the paper dollar 

 would stand at par. The difference of about 

 2 per cent, in the value of the gold dollar would 

 not be noticed in the refreshing effects of re- 

 sumption. The payments of coin would have 

 to be protected and limited at first, until the 

 newness of resumption had worn off. The re- 

 demptions should be confined to small sums; 

 and the national bank notes need not be made 

 redeemable in coin, but exchangeable for legal 

 tenders, which would be redeemed in Washing- 



