PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 97 



the comparatively limited supply. While the nations of Europe 

 are shifting to a gold standard, if we also shift from paper to 

 gold and undertake to redeem our vast volume of paper currency 

 in that metal, the demand for it will be so great that either we 

 shall break down in attempting to resume, or if we succeed, 

 shall run up the price of gold so high that debtors will be ruined 

 and the existing depression in industry become still more disas- 

 trous. Hence we must call silver to our aid and adopt a bi- 

 metallic standard. We shall then have the total body of two 

 great stocks of precious metals in which to redeem instead of 

 one. 



Before proceeding to discuss this argument it is necessary to 

 form some conception as to what they meant by the term bi- 

 metallic standard. 



The sense in which political economists employ the term bi- 

 metallic currency, is that of a currency in which the coinage of 

 gold and silver is free, and both metals are unlimited legal ten- 

 der. It happens that there is no problem in the use of money 

 with which the nations of the world have more experience and 

 more positive knowledge than the attempt to use a bimetallic 

 currency in this acceptation of the terra. The experience has 

 ranged through centuries, and up to the most recent times : it is 

 found among the annals of all civilized nations, and the examples 

 are exceedingly numerous. The results have been uniformly 

 failures. Not a solitary exception has ever been known. The 

 reason is obvious and the explanation perfect. When the law 

 provides for the coinage and legal tender it fixes at the same 

 time the relative money values of the two metals, i. e., declares 

 how much silver shall be equivalent to a given quantity of gold. 

 It begins by fixing these relative values at the same proportion 

 as is found to rule in the markets at the time. But the relative 

 market value of the two metals is continually changing, while 

 the mint value cannot be changed without recoinage. And as 

 soon as a persistent change is developed between the mint ratio 

 an*l the market ratio, it becomes profitable to melt down or ex- 

 port one of the coined metals which inevitably disappears from 

 circulation while the other metal remains and alone performs the 

 function of money. The currency then ceases to be bimetallic 

 and becomes monometallic. In the fluctuations of the market 

 prices, the ratio which had formerly been higher than the mint 

 ratio has become lower. The result was that the metal which 

 at first disappeared came back, and the metal which at first re- 

 mained disappeared in turn. Considered with reference to long 

 periods of years the intended bimetallic currency becomes what 

 is termed an alternate currency ; that is, a currency in which 

 there is a continuous succession of famines of each metal alter- 

 nately. 



No rational person, however, has ever doubted the necessity 

 of using both gold and silver as money. The question which 



