760 BEPOET— 1881. 



substantially the same for many years, until the late large German currency opera- 

 tion caused the bimetallic mints to suspend their procedure, as the effect was to 

 deplete their currencies of gold, and substitute silver to an undesii-able extent. But 

 the Paris Monetary Conference was called together by the leading bimetallic States, 

 Trance and the United States, in the hope that by widening the bimetallic basis, 

 especially by the accession of England and Germany, the new union might be 

 strong enough to ' rehabilitate ' the silver, and maintain the ratio for the futiu'e 

 against all probable or possible incidents. The Conference has not succeeded in 

 this object, but as it has not dissolved, but only adjourned till April next j'ear, 

 there seems still a prospect of at any rate the rehabilitation of the silver. The 

 question has proved of great importance to this country from the remarkable 

 fact that, while this country and her colonies generally have a gold standard, India, 

 which in some sense may claim to be viewed as one half of our empire, has a 

 silver standard. 



The bimetallic view that the two metals can be kept to the one fixed ratio of 

 value depends on the free interaction of the two currencies. If both metals are full 

 legal money, any excess supply of the one metal will be absorbed as money of its 

 own kind, and room made for it by extrusion of so much of the other, out of coinage 

 into merchandise, until the said disturbing excess is balanced. In this way we 

 perceive that the ratio of value is kept steady at the expense of the ratio of 

 quantity. That is to say, if there should happen an unusual supply of gold, the 

 effect would be to increase the quantity of gold coinage in the world and to 

 diminish that of silver, and vice versa with excess silver supply, while the relative 

 value stood unchanged. But this would require that the two coinages should be in 

 a condition of free interaction ; and if they were so only to a very limited extent, 

 the changes in relative quantity might be inconveniently extreme, as indeed the 

 present limited bimetallic union has just of late practically experienced. 



The advantage of bimetallism is that the ratio of value can be kept steady by 

 an adequate breadth of union, and that with the larger basis of the two metals, 

 the incidents affecting the value of either metal separately are diminished in their 

 effect by being spread over the larger amount of the two metals. 



SATURBAT, SEPTEMBER. 3. 



The following Papers were read : — 



1. Results to he attained hy applying to the Transfer of Land in this Country 



the methods employed in the British Colonies. By Sir Robert Toerens, 

 K.G.M.G. 



2. The Economic Influence of the Drinking Customs upon the Nation's Well- 



being. By William Hoyle. 



MOjVBAT, SEPTEMBER 5. 

 The following Papers and Report were read : — 



1. Protection in Young Communities; Recorded Results in Victoria and 

 New South Wales, i??/ George BxoE^i.FowELL, M.A., F.R.A.S., F.S.8. 



(a) Introductory. — I wish to put on record, in detail, a unique case — a test 

 case — the first that history has given us, of the actual recorded results of high 

 and low tariffs in two similarly circumstanced communities, specially interesting 



