Credit Money and the Precious Metals. 261 



wheat has varied according as the crops have been good or 

 bad ; but it will be seen from the table, that, compared 

 with gold, the value of silver in wheat has been remarkably 

 steady. Both metals have appreciated, a fact which may 

 seem rather startling to those who talk of silver as a de- 

 preciated and rejected metal. But, whereas the appreciation 

 of silver, if we take last year's silver price of wheat and 

 compare it with the first year in the table, has been only 

 about 29 per cent., the appreciation of gold has been 

 upwards of 44 per cent. Last year was, however, an 

 exceptional year, silver having been enhanced temporarily,, 

 by the American speculative operations, without any 

 corresponding possible influence on general prices resulting 

 from an addition to the quantity of money consequent on 

 the monetisation of the silver purchased under the new 

 Silver Act, which could, of course, only affect the prices 

 of commodities gradually and after a certain lapse of time,, 

 as the silver or the representative Treasury notes got into 

 circulation. If we take present prices as more representative, 

 we find that silver shows an appreciation of 1 8 per cent only, 

 against an appreciation of 40 per cent in gold. But if we 

 compare this year with 1875, which introduces us to a 

 period when the changes in the cost of transport due 

 to the opening of the Suez Canal, the extension of railways 

 in India and the United States, and the vast improvements 

 in marine engineering have combined to cheapen commo- 

 dities generally, we find still more remarkable steadiness. 

 Silver has still appreciated, and that is explainable, as 

 the improvements in transport to which I have referred 

 must be expected to tell more in the case of bulky commo- 

 dities, like wheat, than in the case of rare and precious 

 metals ; in other words, some fall of prices under any 

 suitable metallic standard would naturally follow such 

 improvements. But, comparing the price of silver to-day 

 with 1875, we find an appreciation in terms of wheat of 



