The San Francisco call., 1896-09-11
for intellectual discussion and is the lead
ing ladies' club in Oakland.

for intellectual discussion and is the lead
ing ladies' club in Oakland.
The speaker opened his address by quot
ing from Hoods apostrophe to Gold"
"Of all things in the world money,
which can least bear tampering with on
anything but scientific treatment" said
Mr.. Valentine, sis being made in this
country the bone of noisy contention, in
stigated by the influence of mining inter-
ests, which ardently desire to raise the
price of silver, and the adherents of a
soft-money heresy, who hope to create
abundant money out of metal of some
kind if they cannot have inconvertible
paper. The natural law of money is, in
general, the law of civilization-begin
ming, it may be, with the barter of a
horse for COW or goat for dog. Then
came pebbles, then iron, then copper and
brass, then silver, and finally gold and
obligations expressed in paper, showing
throughout the law of displacement of
the inferior by the superior"
After reviewing the historical evolution
OF money the speaker proceeded:
IF the coinage of a country consists
only of a single metal, as in the early
coinage of England, and Clipped de
graded and debased coins be allowed to
pass current with good coin all the good
coin will disappear from circulation. 1t is
either boarded, melted down or exported.
All laws are Intellectual to prevent this !;
the chipped, degraded and debasedscoin
will alone remain current.
''If coins of two kinds of metals, such
as gold and silver, are allowed to pass cur
rent together in unlimited quantities and
If a legal ratio is attem pied to be enforced
between them which differs from their rel
atiVe value in the markets of the world
ha W ic TndarrafpH re
from circulation. 1t is either boarded.
melted down or exported, and that which is
overrated alone remains current. The law
holds good also in regard to bank note
circulation.
"This law is not confined to single and
separate countries; it is not limited in
time or space-it is absolutely univer-
sal. The Oresme- Gresham law was ex-
pounded to the Government of Great
Britain by Locke, Newton and other
eminent men of the times; but knowl-
edge of its workings did not reveal to
them a remedy for continually existing
and recurring evils OF coinage. A solution
was found by Sir William Petty in 1881
TO make one metal the standard money
and the other subsidiary to It; that so
much subsidiary coin as could be kept in
free circulation, redeemable on or ex-
changeabIe with the standard metal coins,
was not only the best, but the only
method practicable for using both; /;
that there could, of course, be no
such thing as double standard, and the
greatest stability OF money was to be at
tanned by using one metal as standard.
This theory was elaborated later by
Adam Smith. 1t was the unbroken expe-
rience of centuries when Locke took up
the question in England, as 1t has been
the experience ever since, that immedi-
ateIy side by side with the legal ratio
there is market ratio, and there is no
discernibie tendency for the former to
govern the latter.
"The laws that finally govern finance
are not made in conventions or congresses.
The foundation of the international BIZ
metallic theory-a purely emperical prop
osirton-is thus erroneous from the Begin
ming.
1T is not claimed by any prominent ad-
Vocates Of bimetaliism that the unre-
stricted coinage of silver by any one gov
ernment, even maintaining gold stand
ard, could be otherwise than disastrous
On the contrary, they declare in print
that it would be calamitous and that they