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fornian production of gold were continued at anything like the rate 
it then promised, we should sooner or later witness the following 
among other striking effects, viz. — (1.) A marked and sudden rise 
of wages and prices in the gold-producing countries themselves ; (2.) 
A general and sustained rise, to a greater or less extent, of wages 
and prices in Great Britain, the United States, and other countries 
which employ gold as the exclusive standard of their money ; (3.) In 
countries, like France, which maintain a double standard of gold 
and silver (that is to say, where both metals are equally legal tender , 
and interchangeable, in certain fixed proportions), a continued dis- 
appearance of silver, and the gradual substitution of gold, followed 
by a rise of wages and prices in such countries ; (4.) A great and 
unusual impetus given to trade in all departments, and a marked 
increase of exports and imports ; (5.) No direct effect on the rate 
of interest, but a felt diminution in the purchasing power of fixed 
pecuniary incomes ; (Lastly) It was pointed out that these antici- 
pated changes would probably be more or less retarded by the time 
necessary for the displacement of silver, and that the tendency to 
dearness would in some degree be counteracted by increased facilities 
of communication, improvements in agriculture, improved machinery, 
and the discovery and adoption of cheaper processes in manufactures. 
Whether any or all of these anticipated results have as yet ac- 
tually exhibited themselves, has given rise to much difference of 
opinion. Ten years are perhaps too short a period to enable us to 
come to a decided conclusion ; and within the last ten years several 
events have occurred to render the problem more complex, and 
its solution, for the present, more difficult ; — among others, the un- 
usual drain of silver to the East, the displacement of silver in France, 
the demonetization of that metal in Holland and in our own East 
Indian possessions, — above all, the free-trade legislation inaugurated 
by Sir It. Peel, and the commercial and monetary crisis of 1857. 
From 1851 to 1857 the rise of wages and prices had been continu- 
ous. After the crisis a reaction took place, from the effects of 
which we are only now recovering, although it is believed that, in 
all departments of trade and industry, wages and prices are higher 
now (1860) than they were anterior to the Australian discoveries. 
On the first of the probable effects which have been indicated, it 
is unnecessary to enlarge — -the rise of prices in the gold-producing 
countries was marked and immediate. In California, the prices 
