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Page 22
As it is the fashion of our monometallists to sneer at the possibility of
bimetallism, it may be well to quote here the report of the Royal
Commission on gold and silver, made in 1888. This commission was composed
of six monometallists and six bimetallists, but they assented unanimously
to this proposition:
"SECTION 107. We think that in any conditions fairly to be
contemplated in the future, so far as we can forecast them from
the experience of the past, a stable ratio might be maintained if
the nations we have alluded to (herein), the United Kingdom, the
United States, and the Latin Union, were to accept and strictly
adhere to bimetallism at the suggested ratio. We think that if in
all these countries gold and silver could be freely coined and
thus become exchangeable against commodities at the fixed ratio,
the market value of silver as measured by gold would conform to
that ratio and not vary to any considerable extent."
Mr. Leonard H. Courtney, one of the monometallist members of that
commission who signed the report, has since become an avowed bimetallist,
as have many other prominent Englishmen. Among them may be mentioned
Professor Alfred Marshall and Professor Sidgwick, of Cambridge University;
Professor Nicholson of Edinburgh; Professor H. S. Foxwell, Professor of
Political Economy in University College, London; Professor E. G. Gonner,
of Liverpool; Professor J. E. Munro, of Kings College, London; and many
others.
Mr. Courtney says, in his article in the _Nineteenth Century_, April,
1893: "Is it true that gold is this stable standard? I was one of the six
members of the Gold and Silver Commission who could not see their way
clear to recommend bimetallism, and reported: 'When we look at the
character and power of the fall in the price of commodities, we think that
the sounder view is that the greater part of the fall has resulted from
causes touching the commodities rather than from an appreciation or
increase in value of the standard,' In the same paragraph we had said: 'We
are far from denying that there may have been, and probably has been, some
appreciation in gold, though we may hold it impossible to determine its
extent.'" Now, then, he goes on to say: "Let me make a confession. I
hesitated a little about this paragraph. I thought there was perhaps more
in the suggestion of an appreciation of gold than my colleagues believed;
but while I thus doubted it, I did not dissent. I am now satisfied that
there has been an appreciation of gold greater than I anticipated when I
signed the report, and I should not be able to concur in that same
paragraph again. We have been passing through a period of an appreciation
of gold, and no one can tell how long it will last. This is a serious
matter. The pressure of all debts, private and public, has increased. The
situation is serious. It is a dream to suppose that gold is stable in
value. It is no more stable than silver. It has undergone a considerable
appreciation in recent years, and industry and commerce have been more
hampered by this movement than they would have been had silver been our
standard. Every step taken towards the further demonetization of silver
must tend to the enhancement of the value of gold. It is true that much
inconvenience is involved in the use of gold as a standard in some
countries, and of silver as a standard in others, with no link to check
their divergent relations; but the advantage of having the same monetary
standard throughout the world would be counterbalanced if we made gold
that universal basis and tied all the fortunes of the nations to it."
The bimetallic sentiment in England is not confined to the mere theorist
and doctrinaire or statesman, but is advocated by some of the ablest
journalists in the kingdom. Thus, the _Statist_, which undoubtedly ranks
in that country as the highest authority in financial and economic
matters, is quite as pronounced as Mr. Balfour and others in its views
upon the effect the demonetization of silver has had upon the value of
gold. In its issue of July 1, 1893, it says: "The new policy is likely to
intensify the appreciation of gold. One consequence of the further
appreciation of gold will be to intensify the agricultural depression all
over Europe. Most of the charges upon land having been fixed heretofore,
they will weigh more and more heavily upon land-owners as gold rises in
value. So, again, rents will become more onerous, and it will be found by
and by that the settlement of the last few years was only provisional, and
that a further reduction will become necessary. Also it is evident that
the burden of debt, not only upon individuals, but upon governments, will
be much increased. Everywhere the burden of debt will necessitate
increased taxation, and so will weigh very heavily upon the general
population."
Hon. Robert Giffen, the well-known chief of the statistical department of
the Board of Trade, London, was long known as the most determined and
uncompromising monometallist in England. In 1888 he read a paper before
the Royal Statistical Society, in which he showed that gold had notably
gone up in purchasing power; that the increase was continuous and likely
to continue, and that this was the true explanation of the fall in the
prices of commodities.
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