Although the action taken by Germany in 1873 was the primary cause of silver falling to so low a price in the early months of 1876, it must be borne in mind that there were other powerful influences gathering strength to operate upon the silver market in a similar direction which had been so far simply held in check by the prudence of the authorities directing the currency systems of France, Italy, Belgium, and Switzerland.

It is worthy of remark that similar fears were entertained on the discovery of the Californian and Australian mines in 1849. From that period gold became extremely abundant, and it was expected silver would fall into disuse; but by the natural course of things the depreciation of silver which occurred between 1845 and 1848 soon disappeared. In 1865 from transitory causes silver became so scarce that not only the five-franc pieces, but the small denomination disappeared from the circulation in France. For the purpose of preventing the token money from being thus withdrawn from circulation the Latin union held a conference and decided upon a remedy which had been introduced by the United States and adopted by Switzerland in 1860, which was an abasement of the coinage from 900 to 835 milliemes the pieces of two francs, one franc, fifty and twenty centimes, covenanting that the issue of this new token money should be limited in each of the four States to in all six francs per head.

This convention was not ratified by the powers interested until after the cause which gave rise to it had ceased to operate. The influence which had caused silver to flow towards Asia declined, and the relative value of the two metals recovered its equilibrium. The conference held in 1865 had, however, another consequence. The four states constituted themselves into a monetary union with the view of adopting a common currency of gold and silver five-franc pieces of the same dimensions, weight and fineness, which should be accepted by the public banks of all the states, and a further conference in 1867 resulted in the projection of a treaty with Austria by which that nation was to join the union. At the end of the year 1873, when G-ermany signified her intention of demonetizing silver, which had the immediate effect of depreciating its market value, some of the States in question deemed it advisable to protect themselves from an invasion of the metal. No restrictive measures obviously would be of any avail while any one of the states forming the union was able to coin money as agreed upon and circulate it beyond its own frontiers. In January of 1874 the conference was again held, on its being evident that the demonetization by Germany of her silver would result in these States being invaded with the metal, and for the existing resolutions were substituted those which put a limit upon the coinage of silver during that year.

Les delegues et commissaires plenipotentiaires a la Conference monetaire de 1874 a Paris, Messrs. Feer-Herzog and Lardy thus forecast, and probably accurately, the position the Latin union would have found themselves in if they had allowed matters to take their course when Germany signified her intention of demonetizing silver. " Supposons maintenant qu'on ait laisse aux evenements et a la speculation leur libre cours, qu'aucune entente n'ait pu se pro-duire entre les quatre signataires de la Convention, que serait-il arrive ? Le double etalon aurait produit son effet tout entier, les monnayages d'argent auraient continue avec une plus forte activite qu'en 1873. L'or restant encore en Belgique et en Suisse aurait d'abord completement disparu; les reserves latentes de la France, auraient ensuite ete entamees a leur tour pour etre egale-ment transformees en argent, et au bout d'un petit nombre d'annees, les pays de la Convention, se seraient vus irre-vocablement livres a Tetalon d'argent et hors de possibilite a cause de la baisse de ce metal, de se reconstituer une circulation d'or."

At this period the position was consequently this as regards the projected action of those States that had not already adopted measures to prevent their currencies and commerce from being disturbed by the downward course of the market, which it may be remarked was due as much to overwrought apprehension and the speculative operations of the Indian banks as to the excess of the supply of silver over the demand; England, except as regards her Indian Empire and the trade generally with the East, was as a matter of course indifferent, and did nothing but appoint a committee of the House of Commons to report on the causes of the fall and endeavour, by the adoption of the questionable policy of withholding the Treasury balances from the Indian State Banks, artificially to raise the Indian exchanges by making money scarce in the markets of Calcutta and Bombay.

By the new monetary laws of Scandinavia gold was being already substituted for silver and paper; Holland in a panic commenced to demonetize silver and established a gold standard, which was also the case with Japan, and there was every prospect of the United States and France following suit. Here then we may say that England, Germany, France, Holland,* Scandinavian Kingdoms, Japan, United States, Roumania, and Greece would in future only require silver as token money. The theory of a double standard has been long since shown to be impracticable before there were any signs of the revolution which had now broken out, and consequently to propose seriously as some theorists did its general adoption at such a period when it had been unsuccessfully tried for years was nothing short of Quixotic.

Among the other noteworthy causes which so depressed the price of silver we have in the first place as demanding priority of notice a stagnant state of trade throughout the world which had never been more complete. When production in all countries has fallen to a minimum it stands to reason that less circulating medium will be required everywhere, and that the holders of large stocks of silver could not have elected to throw it on the markets of the world under more disadvantageous circumstances as regards the general interests.