The advocate and Topeka tribune., 1892-11-09

AbuAQ0S uhN q AOeoA - S0AANOROANtS"N 0A4O1AAS
Of silver displaced and made disposable
for the markets Of the world. MiAt re-
turns would justify higher estimate.
During the seventeen years Of the reign
Of Louis Philippe, ending with the date
If the California discovery, the total
French gold coinage was 98y6O0OO0,
making an annual average coinage Of
100000. From 1850 to 1858, both in
elusive, the total French gold coinage
was 9129, ,5S7, ,735, making an annual av-
erage of 914,343O82. The increase in
the coinage during these nine years over
and above the total coinage during the
preceding seventeen years was 9l2O,9S7, :
735. The total French gold coinage
from 1848 to 1871, both inclusive, was
e259, ,SO1, 900, or 81 ,261, 100000, rating the
pound at S4.85.
Professor Hansen, of the Berlin Uni
versity, said in 1868:
HuFODF. 0T f1AIU6f tk10 WuDt9 clVIuEoU WOriU.
Is indebted to Fren"h law for its escape from the
perturb&tl07a In the relative prices OF gold and
silver, thu eatoDed by che enormous arrivals
from Australia and California.
The exchange of silver for gold in the
circulation of various countries in Eu-
rope has been steadily progressing ever
since ''the enormous arrivals from Cali
fornia and Australia" made gold the most
available metal. There has been in ad-
dition a displacement Of silver without
a substitution Of gold, by the suspension
of specie payments in Russia (185T,
Austria (1868), and Italy Q866), the two
first being silver standard countries, and
the last being a double standard coun-
try. The exchange Of silver for gold
under the operation of the double stand
ard was easy and natural. 1t was in
furious to no interest and did not affect
the relative value of the precious metals,
until the German law of 1873 demone-
tizing silver came into practical effect.
Even that law could not have affec ed
the relative value of the metals If other
nations in Europe had not restricted and
suspended the coinage of silver. The
Latin union agreed upon restriction in
January, 1874, before the relative value
Of the metals was affected at all, and no.
body can doubt that France alone, which
had absorbed in nine years after the
California discovery, five or six hundred
million dollars in gold, could have alb.
sorbed the $100,0O0O0U Of silver, which
Germany has occupied four years in
selling, without a disturbance of the rel.
ative value Of the metals. But in any
event, whether the displacements Of sill
YER from the European circulation have
arisen from substitution of gold, sus-
pensions Of specie payments, demone-
tization of silver, or closure Of mints
against its coinage, the process must
come to an end when all the silver which
can possibly be spared consistently with
the requirements of subsidiary coinage
is disposed of. This end is practically
reached already if France adheres to the
double standard, and is not very far of
If France demonetizes silver, as it has no
such quantity of that metal as it had in
1849.
If the exchange of silver for gold shall
still continue in Europe, it will be no
new force acting on the market, but a
force which has been acting without in
terruption since the California and Aus
tralian discoveries. 1t can only con-
tinue until the present very much reduced
- Il =.