44 
law. In the old chaotic system some relief could be got by adjust- 
ing the ratio of the coins to the market worth of the materials of 
which they were composed, but this new proposal would not even 
have permitted that. The movement was probably set on foot by 
people who were losing by the fall in the gold price of silver, such 
as pensioners home from India, who had their pay reckoned in 
silver rupees and then changed into ever decreasing sums in 
sovereigns, also exporters of goods to India and China, who 
suffered in the same way. There were others, and a larger class, 
who were doing very well out of the fall in the price of sliver. 
They naturally kept quiet. Not much was heard from the impor- 
ters of Indian, Chinese and Japanese goods who found a pound 
spent in Asia was able to buy more and more goods every year, 
goods which they sold in Europe at the same prices as before. 
However the attempt to govern the fluctuation in the value of a 
commodity by Act of Parliam.ent is about on a par with the fahled 
exploit of Canute and the waves, and so, after a very energetic 
campaign in its favour which lasted for several years, the bimetallic 
scheme died a natural death. 
The fundamental fallacy of the bimetallists appears to be 
that gold and silver are not commodities in the ordinary sense of 
the word, but that there is something intrinsically different in them, 
and that it is possible to fix not only their value, but the ratio 
between their respective values, by Act of Parliament, although a 
proposal to do the same for the prices of say corn and coal or pota- 
toes would probably be at once dismissed as absurd. Currency 
questions will never be clearly understood unless it is borii in mind 
that the standard of value is only one of many commodities, chosen 
it is true for the qualities referred to in the beginning of this 
paper, but in no way different from the others in the matter of its 
price being fixed by the combined action of the demand for the 
article on the one hand, and the cost of its production on the other. 
The danger of investing gold and silver with mystic properties not 
shared by other commodities was dealt with by Locke as long ago as 
the year 16hl, when he wrote, "An ounce of silver in pence, groats, 
crown pieces, stivers, or ducatoons, or in bullion, is, and always will 
be. of equal value to any other ounce of silver.” 
