PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OP "WASHINGTON, 111 



use of silver in the Orient. In proof of that, he argued the 

 legislation of different countries had made, and to a large degree 

 controlled the market rate. 



Mr. Burchard showed the legal valuations, from time to time, 

 of different countries, some of which, as he said, v^ere above, and 

 some of them at the same time below the market rate ; and he 

 insisted that the facts in the financial history of the past century 

 seemed to show to him most conclusively that the relative market 

 rates of silver and gold had been little affected by the cost or 

 amount of production, but by that legislation which created — 

 sometimes in one and sometimes in another country — a greater 

 use of one or the other of the precious metals, and so a greater 

 or less demand for each. 



He further said that the market rate at any place like Ham- 

 burgh would also be affected, not only by the legal exchangeable 

 value of the two metals established by the country producing 

 either, but also by the cost of transportation, time, and risk, in 

 sending to the country whose legislation had given a greater use, 

 and consequent demand, for one of the metals ; that the changing 

 balances of trade between countries giving legal preference to 

 different metals, would affect the demand for each, and therefore 

 affect the market value, and make fluctuations that, by the adop- 

 tion of the same legal rate by all the commercial nations, would 

 disappear. 



In further proof that legislation had been the most potent fac- 

 tor in the past affecting relative value, he pointed out, as shown 

 by his diagram, that when France, in 1*785, adopted the ratio of 

 15^ to 1, the ratio of nearly all the other countries of Europe was 

 below 15 to 1, and in England 15.2 to 1 ; and that after the legis- 

 lation of France, the relative market value of silver to that of 

 gold declined to 15^ of silver to 1 of gold; and that when England 

 made operative her law, which made gold the only legal standard 

 coin, by resuming gold payments, and by reason of her resump- 

 tion and gold standard legislation, commencing in 1819, and 

 during the next thirty years drew^ mox'e gold from other countries 

 than all the world produced in the period, the market prices of 

 gold and silver became affected thereby, gold advancing in value, 

 compared with silver. 



The better price for silver after 1850, and to 1810, Mr. Burch- 

 ard said resulted from the legislation of India, where silver, in 



