WHY SILVER CEASES TO BE MONET. 579 



number of silver dollars — on the average, two and a half millions 

 a month — and the expectation of the legislature was, at the be- 

 ginning, that these bulky coins would find their way into circula- 

 tion and use. In fact, but a very small proportion of them ever 

 came into actual use. Notwithstanding every effort of the Treasury 

 to get the coins into circulation, the community stubbornly re- 

 fused to make use of more than a small proportion of them. Some 

 sixty millions were got into circulation ; but the remainder of the 

 four hundred millions which were coined lie unused in the vaults 

 of the Treasury, and when issued by it flow back with a regularity 

 and persistence not unlike the operation of natural law. 



But the experience of the United States under this same act of 

 1878 suggests a very easy mode of surmounting this difficulty and 

 of securing the actual and effective use of silver in indefinite 

 quantity. The printing press and the engraver's art have revolu- 

 tionized the situation. The silver certificates, which now form the 

 largest single constituent in our every-day money, were issued, at 

 first sparingly, later more generously, to represent the coined 

 dollars and to circulate in their place. They are printed in any 

 desired denomination ; they are easy to carry ; they circulate more 

 freely even than gold coin. It is curious that this simple device 

 should not have been thought of at the outset, and should have 

 been evolved only after an experience, running through several 

 years, of the impossibility of securing the circulation of the actual 

 coins.* But the lesson has been learned, and in the schemes for 

 the free and unlimited coinage of silver dollars it is now always 

 proposed that the silver shall indeed be freely coined, but that its 

 actual circulation shall take place through certificates represent- 

 ing the deposit of the coined metal in the Government's hands. 

 By a machinery of this sort any durable commodity may indeed 

 become the basis of the monetary circulation, and the crucial 

 question becomes not one of the possibility of the use of a com- 

 modity, but one of its expediency. 



This leads us to another phase of the question, the inquiry 

 whether silver possesses that stability in value which is admitted 

 on all hands to be essential for money. If the price of silver, like 

 that of copper and iron, is subject to great and rapid variations 

 from changes in the conditions of production, it is inexpedient, 

 even though possible, to make it the basis of the circulating 

 medium. If the great decline in the price of silver in the last 

 twenty years is due to causes like those which have brought down 

 the price of copper and the price of iron, we have strong ground 

 for refusing to use it further, except for subsidiary purposes like 

 those for which copper continues to be used. But here it may be 

 answered, and certainly with much show of reason, that the decline 

 in the price of silver has been due largely to legislation. The civ- 



