i86 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST 
[September 
r, 1890. 
to glanoe. Under the heading “ Gold and Silver,” 
it is stated : — 
“ These two metals, which have materially aided the 
cause of progress, have suffered such mutations of 
fortune in the nineteenth century, that it may be worth 
while to study their antecedents, Michael Ohevalier 
is of opinion that at the period of the discovery of 
America the total amount of gold in Europe was only 
£12,000,000, and of silver £28,000,000. At that time 
on ounce of gold was worth ten of silver, but as soon 
as the conquest of Mexico and Peru by the Spaniards 
poured a flood of silver into Europe this metal lost one- 
third of its value. In the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries gold stood for fifteen times the value of 
silver. A new epoch occurred with the discovery of 
gold in California and Australia, but silver never 
recovered its position as a precious metal.” 
We can remember the fears entertained of the 
depreciation of gold when California and Australia 
began, each of them, to add nine or ten millions 
annually to the supply of gold in the world. But 
such was the simultaneous expansion of com- 
merce that no such result followed, and gold has 
retained a quality of permanency most valuable 
in an article adopted as a standard or represen- 
tative of value, which really rests in the goods 
which nations or communities barter. Mulhall 
gives a table, the figures of which show that 
since the era of Columbus, 1492, the world’s wealth 
in gold has risen in value from £20,000,000 to 
no less than £1,120,000,000 in 1880. The pro- 
gress of silver in the same period of nearly 
four centuries has been from £40,000,000 to 
£1,612,000,000. The aggregate increase has been from 
£60,000,000 to the enormous value of £1,832,000,000, 
We quote again : — 
‘•During 300 years of the Spanish dominion in America 
the mines of Mexico, Peru, and Brazil yielded a little 
over £1,200,000,000, of which three-fourths were silver. 
Since Marshall’s discovery of gold in California (1848) 
there has been an increase of £950,000,000 in precious 
metals, as follows: — 
Gold. Silver. Total. 
£ £ £ 
United States 282,000,000 74,000,000 356,000,000 
Australia 252,000,000 ... 252,000,000 
Spanish America 20,000,000 160,000,000 130,000,000 
Eussia ... 93,000,000 3.000,000 96,000,000 
Other countries 11,000,000 55,000,000 66,000,000 
658,000,000 292,000,000 950,000,000 ” 
Mulhall calculates that the production of the 
two metals had, in the ease of gold, gone 
down from £27,000,000 per annum in 1852-1861 
to £16,000,000 in 1872-78 ; while the production 
of silver had risen from £8,000,000 per annum 
in the former period to £12,000,000 in the latter. 
Since 1848 the calculation was, that notwithstanding 
gold had doubled in quantity and silver increased 
only one-fourih, the purchasing power of gold was 
only 20 per cent reduced against 33 per cent 
depreciation in silver. Increased production of 
silver and the demonetization of the metal both 
contributed to lower the value of the secondary 
preoious metal. To meet the wants of increasing 
trade, coinage had in the thirty years trebled, the 
figures in 1878 having been, for 
Gold coins £959,500,000 
Silver „ £620,000,000 
Total. ..£1,579,500, 000 
To meet the demand _ for coinage, stocks of 
the preoious metals in excess of the yield 
of mines had been drawn upon. But a pro- 
cess of melting down coins goes on continually ; 
and it was known that between 1840 and 1880 India 
bad absorbed £ 1 0.5,000,000 of gold and £238,000,000 of 
silver. Were the precious metals hoarded in India 
cleased, tlio value of gold would be somewhat. 
and that of silver considerably affected. Mulhall 
calculates that about one-sixth of the bullion of 
the world is locked up in banks, mainly as re- 
presenting paper in circulation, of course. All the 
nations of Europe import bullion except Eussia, 
which possesses gold mines, the produce of which 
does not seem to be very accurately reported. 
And in dealing with imports and exports of bullion 
and the balances in different countries, we must 
never forget the large sums of money carried by 
passengers to and from all parts of the world. 
If the silver is, as our correspondent tried to make 
out, not over-abundant but the reverse, conditions 
must have greatly changed since Bismarck stopped 
the sale of the German demonetized metal because 
such sales were being made at a loss of 15 per 
cent. American legislation, demanded by the 
farmers, who believe that plenty of currency means 
good prices, as well as by the owners of silver 
mines, has, for the time, given silver a boom ; but 
bimetallists and others must not “ lay the fiatter- 
ing unction to their souls” that this is likely to 
last or that silver is likely to recover its former 
relation to gold. — The extract from the Encyclopadia 
Britannica appended to the letter we are noticing 
affords further information on this oomplioated 
question. While the value of silver fluctuates so 
greatly and is so uncertain, no wonder if the 
great and wealthy countries of the world refuse to 
use it as, alternatively with gold, a second standard 
of value. 
♦ 
CEYLON UPCOUNTEY PLANTING EEPORT- 
THE PIANTEE AND HIS COLOMBO AGENT — BISE IN EX- 
CHANGE — PEICB OF TEA LEAF — MR. LIPTON AND HIS 
TEA TRADE — WHAT WE MAX HEAR NEXT — A CASE OF 
ALCOHOLIC FAMINE — WHAT THE WRITER FEELS RES- 
PECTING IT — COFFEE CROPS— WEATHER. 
July 31st. 
The planter has long regarded the Colombo agent 
as his natural enemy. He could drill into his 
profits with as little consideration as a hard-headed 
borer makes its way into a cacao pod ; and when 
the planter showed any tendency to exuberance of 
flush, the Colombo agent was able to keep it well 
in hand, and put the best sucking bug to shame 
by his powers of absorption. For keenness in 
looking after number one he was held to be unique : 
his like not easily to be found in creation. When 
a story of mean smartness was told upeountry, 
if it were fathered on the Colombo agent it took 
at once and became a portion of the orthodox 
canon which was regularly recited when planters 
were wont to gather together. Of late, however, the 
Colombo agent’s notoriety has been somewhat on 
the wane, and — it is with grief I have to record 
it— his place is being taken by the planter who 
buys leaf. Before the rise in' exchange, leaf was 
fetohing from nine to ten cents a pound ; but when 
the Americans meddled with our silver and we 
had to face the dearer rupee, the planter who 
buys leaf fixed his own price. In doing so, he very 
often not only covered the difference of exchange 
but so much for his panic as well ; and it became 
pretty evident to the seller that whoever was to 
be cornered, it was not likely to be the man who 
was buying the leaf. “ Talk about the rapacity of 
Colombo agents,” said one to me who was told that 
8 cents was all that he was to get in place of 
the decent 91 cents — “talk of rapacity : why, when 
you begin to sell leaf to your neighbour, and prices 
fall or exchange rises, nothing can beat him for 
extortion.” I suppose that there have been naore 
disagreeables among planters over the purchase of 
tsa leaf than over everything else put together. The 
