580 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ilized countries one after another have given up the use of silver, 

 and by so narrowing the field for its use have caused a fall in price 

 to take place which otherwise would have been averted. Germany 

 gave up the use of silver, except for subsidiary purposes, in 1873. 

 The United States dropped silver from her list of coins in the same 

 year. France and the Latin Union virtually closed their mints 

 to the free coinage of silver in 1874. Italy and Austria, in resum- 

 ing specie payments — the one in 1883, the other in 1893 — refused to 

 adopt any but a gold standard. If in all these countries silver had 

 been freely coined ; if in Germany, France, the United States, and 

 Austria, silver had retained the footing before the law which it 

 had twenty-five years ago, the price undoubtedly would not have 

 fallen so much, and the objection to its use from the fall in its 

 price would certainly be much less strong than it is. Unquestion- 

 ably, the great increase in the production of silver has contributed 

 to bring down its price ; but it is at least probable that the fall 

 would have been less, and indeed that there would have been 

 little fall, if any, in the gold price of silver if the mints of all 

 those countries had remained open to silver as they were in 1870. 

 Whether such a state of things would have been conducive to the 

 general prosperity of these countries is another question. Looking 

 merely at the point now under consideration — the cause and mean- 

 ing of the lower price of silver — we must admit that legislation has 

 been an important cause among those that brought it about. 



We may go further with this line of thought, and consider 

 how far it is possible that legislation might affect the price of 

 silver in the future. If at the present time an effective interna- 

 tional agreement were adopted for the wide use of silver as 

 money in civilized countries, the price of silver undoubtedly 

 would be raised for some considerable time. An agreement of 

 the great countries, such as England, France, Germany, and the 

 United States, for the free coinage of silver at a fixed ratio with 

 gold would undoubtedly absorb much silver, would clear the 

 market of heavy stocks, and would raise the price of silver in 

 terms of gold to the point fixed by the international ratio. Such 

 an agreement could hardly fail to bring about the concurrent cir- 

 culation of silver and gold in the contracting countries, and to 

 establish a real and effective bimetallism. How long this con- 

 current legislation would continue, and how long, even if the 

 legislation continued, silver and gold would remain equal in rela- 

 tive value at the agreed ratio, are different questions. The future 

 production of silver, the possible extended use of gold for other 

 than monetary purposes, the probable increased use of gold in 

 countries outside the international agreement, would very likely 

 cause gold to disappear in the end from the contracting coun- 

 tries, and so would make silver the sole basis of their circulating 



