it as it stood at any particular time in
the city which might then be called the greatest commercial centre,
whether Venice, Hamburg, Antwerp, or London. His history comprises the
entire period from 1252 to 1894. It is only fair that I should also give
his explanation of the stability of the metals, which is extremely
interesting.

He begins his second chapter with the statement that the discovery of
America was "the monetary salvation and resurrection of the Old World";
that it was a time of unexampled increase in the precious metals and
equally unexampled rise of prices, but there was also "feverish
instability and want of equilibrium in the monetary systems of Europe." He
shows how the first great import was of gold, which began to affect prices
in 1520; how this was followed by a very much greater increase in silver,
and how, while prices were rising so rapidly as to stimulate trade and
incidentally do damage by causing great fluctuations, yet there must have
been some great regulator preventing the evil which we should _a priori_
have expected. He finds it in the fact that Antwerp had taken the place of
Venice and Florence, and conducted a great trade with the far East. His
language is: "The centre of European exchanges--Antwerp in the sixteenth
century as London to-day--has always performed one supremest function,
that of regulating the flow of metals from the New World by means of
exporting the overplus to the East. The drain of silver to the East,
discernible from the very birth of European commerce, has been the
salvation of Europe, and in providing for it Antwerp acted as the
safety-valve of the sixteenth century system as London has done since. The
importance of the change of the centre of gravity and exchange from Venice
to Antwerp, therefore, lies in this fact. Under the old system of overland
and limited trade, Venice could only provide for such puny exchange and
flow as the mediaeval system of Europe demanded; she would have been unable
to cope with such a flood of inflowing metal as the sixteenth century
witnessed, and Europe would have been overwhelmed."

Professor Shaw argues that without the Eastern safety-valve Europe would
have been ruined by an excess of the precious metals, that India furnished
the needed reservoir--did she not take gold as well as silver?--and that
Venice was so far limited to an overland trade that she could not have
performed the function Antwerp did. Later he sets forth the cu