294 Gold, Silver and the Coinage of the Silver Dollar. 



of the precious metals has been going on during all modern time. Po- 



matethat depreciation during the past five or six centuries as equal 

 to from five-sixths to seven-eighths of the value of these metals about 

 the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries of our era. That is, that their 

 present value or purchasing power, is only from one-eighth to one-sixth 

 what it was five or six hundred years ago. 



LuAd and silver, during all historic time, have performed concurrent 



value at different times and in different countries; but, on the whole, 

 with about equal acceptance for each, at such relative values. Judg- 



.observe in our own time, there would >. m a natural adaptedness of 

 the two to serve the wants of mankind co-ordinately in the exchanges 

 of commerce. Different nations, at different times, have exhibited a 

 leaning of preference, now for silver and then for gold, as their chief 

 medium of exchange and measure of values. But, as has been before 

 stated, a pretty steady tendency from the earliest historic times to the 

 present is manifested, toward a gradual widening of the difference in 

 value between the two metals.* 



During the past ten or fifteen years a great change has been reached 

 in the relations of value of the two metals. Germanv having resolved 

 in 1871, to change her monetary standard from silver to gold — estab- 

 lishing a gold monometallic, in place of a silver monometallic cur- 

 rency, as has been before stated, placed a large part of her stock of 

 silver coin on the London market, depressing its current value more 

 than 20 per cent. The result of this action was much beyond the 

 sacrifice of a few millions on the sale of 160 millions value of merchan- 

 dise. It was the disposal of a commodity under conditions which aimed 

 a fatal blow at its fitness for the chief use which had before given it 

 its value. It was even more than this. It was the elimination, so far 

 as one influential nation could accomplish it, of one of two joint and 

 equal factors in the measure of values of the world's commerce. Its 

 effects are felt to the remotest and most obscure corners of the earth, 



