People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 January 1894 — AIM OF BIMETALLISTS. [ARTICLE]

AIM OF BIMETALLISTS.

It Is Not to Set Up a Duality of Standards but to Bring About a Common Standard of Value. The aim of the bimetallists, instead of being - —as is sometimes incorrectly x^aupposed —to set up a duality of standards, is to bring - about a common standard of value, as far as possible everywhere, in “gold" countries and “silver” countries alike. What bimetallists contend for. in the first place, L that the unity which is one of the first requisites in a monetary standard has not been attained in our present monometallic system. Furthermore, they contend that it can be brought about only by the adoption of the system they advocate, which is, to make the standard of value—if possible everywhere, but, at all events, over tiie largest possible area amongst the commercial nations of the world—consist, not of one or of the other of the two precious metals, gold or silver, but of a combination of the two, linked together. So far from being untried, bimetallism was at one time in operation in several European countries, and this continued for many years. But there is a special reason for taking the system as it was in operation in France from 1803 to 1873. Bimetallism was established there in 1803 by Napoleon. At that time, the English currency system also was bimetallic. Bimetallism had been established in England in 1717, on the recommendation of Sir Isaac Newton, then master of the English mint. It was not abandoned by England until 1810. But, speaking of France, here is how bimetallism worked in that country down to 1873. From • 1803 to 1873, the French mint was open for the unrestricted coinage, whether of gold or of silver, either metal being

accepted for coinage in the ratio of 15>* to I—for instance, 15>tf ounces of silver or 1 ounce of gold was coined into an equal sum of money. In 1865, the same arrangement was adopted by the other countries of the group known as the Latin union—Belgium, Switzerland, Italy and Greece. Down to 1873, then, anyone, in any part of the world, who had either gold or silver bullion to dispose of, could have taken it to the mint of any of those countries and there made it into coin. Here are the three points of the bimetallic system as it was carried out in those countries. Frst, any given quantity of gold bullion was always exchangeable at the mints for its weight in gold coins; and any given quantity of silver bullion was likewise exchangeable for its weight in silver coins Secondly, the coins given out in return for any weight of standard gold bullion of 15X times the value of those given out in return for the same weight of silver bullion. Thirdly, all those coins, whether of silver or of gold, were “legal tender,” within the country, for the discharge of all debts to any amount. It can hardly be necessary to point out that when the two metals are thus taken into the standard currency, the fixing of a ratio of value between them —that is, between the mint value of a given weight of one and the mint value of the same weight of the other—is a matter of absolute necessity. Except at a fixed ratio of value between them, the two metals could not be kept in circulation in a country as money. That is admitted on all hands. If no check were kept upon the tendencies to divergence between the respective values of gold and silver—the value of each being left to be determined merely by the chances of supply and demand in the markets of the world — commerce would be rendered practically impossible. For it would be open to debtors to discharge their obligations in one or m the other according as one or the other was, for the time, proportionately less in value. That would 1 e utterly subversive of the certainty which is an essential basis of all commercial transactions.

The first and most obvious objection against a monometallic system of currency is that it leaves the standard of value open in the moat unguarded way to the operation of every influence that tends to deprive it of stability. In a monometallic system,the standard coin, whether it be of gold or silver, is necessarily exposed to fluctuations in value which may be very considerable and may easily lead ta most serious, and even disastrous, results. The value of each of the precious metals, as of any other commodity, is open to wide fluctuations. The value of either of them, like the value of any other commodity, is determined merely by the run of the market, the relation between supply and demand. Now, monometallism, as even the most extreme monometallists must admit, does nothing to exclude this liability, or even to diminish it. Take, for instance, the English gold monometallist currency. Gold, and consequently the sovereign,—that is to say, the weight of gold contained in a sovereign —is liable to fluctuate in value, just as corn is, or cotton, or cloth. Even “he most extreme monometalist does noth-ing-even to check that liability to fluctuation. —Archbishop Walsh.