110 BULLETIN OP THE 



the coinage of the standard silver dollar, on the 28th of Feb- 

 ruary, 1878, under which $54,806,050 in silver dollars have been 

 coined. This in no way appears to have injured the credit of the 

 government or of the bonds ; the 4^ per cent, bonds, then scarcely 

 above par, are now at a premium of eight per cent,, while the 4 

 per cent, bonds are at a premium that yields but o/g per cent, to 

 the investor. 



To show that the act for the coinage of silver dollars was 

 neither dishonest nor inequitable, Mr. Burchard stated that when 

 it was passed in IStS, the purchasing power of silver in this coun- 

 try — measured by the comparative prices of commodities — was 

 the same as in 18T0, when the refunding act was passed. He 

 stated that a careful examination of the average yearly values of 

 commodities for the last ten years had been made in the Mint 

 Bureau, and the results were to be found in the last annual re- 

 port of the director. The prices ascertained by dividing values 

 by quantities of eighty leading articles of export, embracing 

 85 per cent, of the total value of the exports of the United States, 

 shovred an increase from 1870 to 1879, in the purchasing power 

 of United States notes of 47 percent., and in gold of 14 per cent., 

 and of the latter, since 1873, of over 20 per cent,, while the pur- 

 chasing power of silver in 1878 was at 100, compared with itself 

 as it stood in 1870. 



To show that the amount of the relative quantity or annual 

 production of gold and silver did not determine their relative 

 market values, the speaker exhibited upon a chart the annual pro- 

 duction of the precious metals in successive decades, from 1700 

 to 1870, and the average market price at Hamburgh for the same 

 periods. He pointed out the rise in the market value of silver 

 up to near the close of the 18th century, and that when silver 

 was being produced relatively to gold in quantities three times 

 greater than In the preceding half century, the market price of 

 silver was advancing instead of declining, and that when gold 

 and silver production had become equal by the decline in the 

 amount of silver produced, the market value of silver, compared 

 with gold, had declined instead of advancing. 



The only apparent conformity of the law, as claimed, of a 

 higher relative price for either metal on account of relative dimin- 

 ished production, the speaker stated to be from 1850 to 1870, but 

 which he said resulted from legislation which gave an exclusive 



