Gold, Silver and the L'uinmjo of the Silver Dollar. 



alone, or silver alone, can be. The theory is that the base is broader 

 — a larger volume of value in the materials of money as the measure 



the commercial value of one of the metals elevates the other, and vice 



8. The theory of the monometallists is that half the world may use 

 gold and the other half will prefer silver as the money of commerce. 

 But if this condition is realized, the world goes back to barter in inter- 

 national commerce. It is a relapse toward barbarism. This condi- 

 tion of barter is already illustrated in the relations of the Indian ex- 

 changes with England. 



9. While facts fail to prove the claim of the extreme advocates of 

 the continued coinage of the silver dollar in our country, that the wide 

 and widening difference in the value of gold and silver arises from an 

 appreciation of gold, and not from the depreciation of silver; yet there 

 is great reason to fear that the elimination of silver from the world's 

 money, would cause great derangement of all the values of commerce; 

 retard greatly the productive industries of mankind; and, for a period, 

 longer or shorter, turn backward the dial of civilization. 



10. Pacts of history seem to sustain the opinion that the purchasing 

 power, or actual value of the money metals — gold and silver — have 

 been through the past five or six centuries, slowly but steadily depreci- 

 ating in value, and that this depreciation is still going on. The cause of 

 such depreciation seems to be more the extension of credit; national 

 debts, and the use of bills of exchange; banks, bank-checks, and bank- 

 notes, and clearing houses, than the increase in quantity of the prec- 

 ious metals as instruments of exchange. This depreciating tendency 

 has been much more rapid during the past two centuries, since the in- 

 vention of national debts, than previously. All inventions to econo- 

 mize the use of coin in settling the exchanges of commerce tend to de- 

 preciation of the value of gold and silver. The measure of this depre- 

 ciation is estimated at five-sixths to seven-eighths of their value six 

 centuries ago.* 



11. Desirable as the retention of silver as an equal factor with gold 

 in the world's money is, we seem to have reached a point at which a 

 concurrence of the chief commercial nations as to a common ratio of 

 value with gold, at which it will be maintained by each, is an indis- 

 pensable condition to that result. 



