State Bank Notes. 



49 



The change of price in silver that would in any ease have 

 been used at home does not sensibly affect the cost, being 

 a mere readjustment of domestic exchanges. The correc- 

 tion applies, then, to the silver bought by government, 

 added to the net silver-export still remaining (which may 

 be a positive or negative quantity; the latter representing 

 an import and consequent loss by the raised price). The 

 net export of silver from 1879 to 1892 was worth about 

 $100,000,000; from 1882 to 1892, about S80,000,000. The 

 government purchases from 1879 to 1890 were about a 

 quarter of the world's product, and since 1890 more than 

 a third, and their effect on the price must have been con- 

 siderable; but it seems liberal to set three-quarters of the 

 actual price as the lower limit of the price as it might have 

 been with no government purchases except for subsidiary 

 coinage. On that scale, the goods received in exchange for 

 the exported silver* of 1879-92 may, at the lower limit, 

 have cost the country $25,000,000 less than their apparent 

 cost; for the exported silver of 1882-92, $20,000,000 less. 

 Any such gain diminishes the cost of our use of silver for 

 money, and corresponding deductions are incorporated in 

 the following table, where the cost of the silver bought by 

 the Treasury appears separately, with the same three- 

 quarters rule used to deduce a lower limit of true cost. 



COST TO THE COUNTRY, IN GOLD. 

 (Millions of dollars.) 



*It would bo a needless refinement of the question to take account of the 

 diminished home production and export, due to lower price. 



+ Including gold coin and bullion held by the Treasury. The official estimate 

 is 246 millions in 1S79, 507 in 1882, 664 in 1892. 



