lx. 



Annual Report of the Council. 



work on the science, was published in 1883. I n recent years 

 he has been perhaps best known as an advocate of an inter- 

 national bimetallic monetary system. His opinions on this 

 subject were, however, far from being of recent formation. 

 He began to write in the newspapers on money — a favourite 

 topic of his father's — as far back as 1858, when a youth of 

 18, and his latest opinions were held at least co-extensively 

 with his career as a teacher of political economy. In 1878 

 he attended the Paris Monetary Conference as a delegate of 

 the American Government, and in an address to the Con- 

 ference in support of bimetallism he opposed M. Feer- 

 Herzog's prediction that a solution of the problem would be 

 found in a natural division of the world into two great 

 groups of nations using gold and silver respectively as money, 

 on the ground that the dislocation of the exchanges between 

 such groups would be attended by intolerable economic evils. 

 He also contended that not more than three territorially 

 extensive countries in the world could possibly maintain a 

 single gold standard on true economic principles. In the 

 same year he published a large treatise on " Money," con- 

 sisting of the substance of lectures delivered in the Johns 

 Hopkins University at Baltimore, in which he traced the 

 history of monetary doctrines, and introduced the student to 

 the literature of the subject. The book is a masterly 

 exposition, and is characterised by an eminently fair 

 and judicial tone. In it Walker discusses issues of paper 

 money very fully, and supports the doctrine taught by 

 his father that nominally, or even practically, convertible 

 notes are liable to be issued in excess, and that " the 

 tendency to a divergence of demand and supply leading 

 to an over-production (of commodities) which is never 

 fully utilised" must be "in a greater or less degree, 

 but always with unfortunate results, aggravated by the 

 issue of paper money not based, cent, per cent., on the 

 money of international commerce." This book was followed 

 in 1879 by a work entitled " Money in its relations to 

 Trade and Industry," which is to some extent an abridg- 



