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Coin and Currency in [No. 9, new series. 



mainly satined. From a statement which we have compiled with 

 care, we find that the imports of silver into England by the Royal 

 Mail Company's Packets from the West Indies, Mexico, and the 

 Isthmus, have amounted this year to about £2,250,000 sterling. 

 Adding an estimated total of say half a million in silver drawn 

 from other Trans -Atlantic sources, we arrive at a total sup- 

 ply of about two millions and three-quarters derived from 

 other than Continental States. The shipments of silver alone, 

 direct from Southampton, having amounted in the first six months 

 of 1857, as already stated to £8,679,369, it follows that nearly 

 six millions sterling in silver must have been drawn from the 

 stocks of that metal, either held by the banks on the Continent 

 or circulating as coin there. In all probability, and especially 

 judging from the immense quantities of French and Belgian five- 

 franc pieces which are despatched just as they are received from 

 the Continent, or is chiefly upon the actual stock of Continental 

 coinage that this serious and never-ceasing draught is made. 



" French official returns recently published throw a striking 

 light upon this remarkable movement. During the first five 

 months of the present year, the exports of silver from France ex- 

 ceeded the imports of that metal by about £5,900,000. These 

 exports were doubtless chiefly to England, and in this single fact 

 we have evidence as to the source from which is drawn the rest 

 of the needful supplies of silver over and above those received 

 from America. Nor is this wholesale abstraction of silver from 

 the Continent a temporary or evanescent process ; it has gone on 

 for years, in a constantly increasing ratio, and bids fair to conti- 

 nue so long as silver can be procured there, and is wanted in the 

 East. In 1854 the silver exported from France exceeded the im- 

 ports by £6,548,000: in 1855 by £7,888,000, and in 1856 by 

 £11,344,600, making a total drain of £25,780,000 in the short 

 space of three years. Of this a portion went to the East, another 

 large portion has been locked up in the National Bank of Vienna,* 



* This Bank was established by Maria Theresa in 1762, for the pur- 

 pose of effecting a paper circulation, to which a forced legal currency 

 was given. In 1797, Government prohibited demand of exchange in 

 coin above 25 fl. (£2). During the war gold and silver almost disap- 

 peared from circulation and instead there was paper, representing sums 

 as low as 2s. or 3s. Much of the smaller currency was brass and issued 

 at double its intrinsic value. 



