State Convention—Gold as a Standard. Etc. 207 
perfect. But, whatever the causes may be, if the tables show any¬ 
thing with reference to the variation of prices, they show that the 
value of gold is exceedingly unstable. 
That this is not wholly owing to a redundant paper currency or 
to circumstances peculiar to our own country, is indicated by the 
testimony of Professor Jevons, who will certainly be regarded as a 
disinterested witness. ' In his recent v r ork on “ Mone} T and the 
mechanism of exchange,” he refers to a previous paper of his, on 
“ Variation of Prices,” read before the London Statistical Societ}', 
in 1865, in which he claims to have shown that the value of irold be- 
tween 1789 and 1809, fell in the ratio of 100 to 54, or by 46 per 
cent. From 1809 to 1849, it rose again in the extraordinary ratio 
of 100 to 245, or by 143 per cent., rendering government annuities 
and all fixed payments extending over this period almost two and 
a half times as valuable as they were in 1809. I have not at hand 
any statistics showing the amount of money in circulation in 
Great Britain during these periods, but it will be safe to assume 
that there w r as a large increase on the whole. Thus indicat¬ 
ing another serious fallacy in the reasonings of a leading school of 
British economists who teach that the value of money depreciates, 
or what is the same thing, that prices appreciate, in a ratio corres¬ 
ponding to the increase of the amount of money in circulation. 
Professor Jevons says, furthermore, that u since 1849 the value of 
gold has again fallen to the extent of at least 20 per cent; and a 
careful study of the fluctuations of prices, as shown either in the 
annual reviews of trade of the Economist newspaper, or in the pa¬ 
per referred to above, shows that fluctuations of from 10 to 25 per 
cent, occur in every credit cycle.” 
It may be said that such statistics are unsatisfactory, because on¬ 
ly indicating the condition of things where a mixed currency is 
used. Let us, then, test the matter by an examination of the price¬ 
lists in California, where they have a purely metallic currency. I 
have not been able to secure such lists, extending over a series of 
many years, as I would desire to do, in order to establish the fact 
more clearly. But I chanced to find, the other day, in the San Fran¬ 
cisco Journal of Commerce of January 12, 1876, a table of compar¬ 
ative prices of twent} r -nine staple and representative commodities 
in the markets of that city. The table was prepared without any 
reference to the question now under discussion, and is, therefore, 
