sought for many
years to unify the coinage of nations, and to adopt common standards
of weights and measures, so that commerce may be freed from the
restrictions now imposed upon it, but Great Britain has steadily
opposed all these enlightened measures, and thus far has been able
to defeat them.

My report from the committee on finance, made to the Senate June
7, 1868, contains a full statement of the acts of the monetary
conference at Paris, and of the approval of its action by many of
the countries there represented, and of the support given to the
plan in Great Britain by many of her ablest statesmen and the great
body of her commercial classes, but the party then in power in
parliament refused its sanction, and thus, as already stated, the
measure failed.

It has been quite common, during recent discussion about silver,
to attribute the alleged demonetization of that metal to the action
of the Paris monetary conference. In 1867, when this conference
was in session, as already stated, sixteen ounces of silver were
worth more than one ounce of gold. Fifteen and one-half ounces of
silver were the legal equivalent of one ounce of gold in all European
countries. No suggestion was made or entertained to disturb the
circulation of silver. The only object sought was to secure some
common coin by which other coins could be easily measured. As gold
was the most valuable metal in smallest space, and the five-franc
gold piece of France was the best _unit_ by which other coins could
be measured, other gold coins were to be multiples of the unit, so
that five francs would be a dollar and five dollars would be a
pound. The coins of other nations would be made to conform to
multiples of this unit.

It was perfectly understood that, while silver was the chief coin
in domestic exchanges in every country, it was not convenient for
foreign commerce, owing to its bulk. The ratio between gold and
silver was purely a domestic matter, to be determined by each
country for itself. It is apparent that the chief cause of the
fall of the market value of silver is its increased production.
This affects the price of every commodity, cotton, corn, or wheat
as well as silver. The law of supply and demand regulates value.
It is the "higher law" more potent than acts of Congress. If the
supply is in excess of demand the price will fall, in spite of
legislation. The most striking evidence of this was furnished by
our recent legislati