mendous pressure due to the demonetization of gold in
Austria, Germany, and other countries. It is not possible to say with
certainty how far gold would have cheapened, or, to speak in the current
language, how high the ratio of silver would have become, had France
during the decade abandoned her bimetallic system; but it is certain that
the disproportion would have been enormous, undoubtedly very much greater
than the present disproportion in the market between silver and gold,
resulting from the demonetization of silver. M. Chevalier gave it as his
opinion that the ratio would sink at least as low as 8 to 1, that is, that
gold would be worth but half what it was rated at in relation to silver in
the American coinage, and this he believed would certainly happen, despite
the power and willingness of France to maintain the old ratio. He did not
venture to say how low the ratio would sink if France abandoned her
policy, but he evidently looked forward to a time when gold would be
practically too cheap for money.

Years afterward, in writing as a philosopher rather than an advocate, he
took more rational ground, and compared the action of France to that of a
parachute which retarded the fall of gold. The maximum effect of the
enormous gold inflation of 1848-65 was to create a disturbance of less
than five per cent. in value of the metals in countries outside of France.
During all the years that the law of 1803 was in practical force the
variations as shown by a diagram seemed but trifling, despite the enormous
over-production of silver for many years and of gold for many other years,
and yet, immediately after 1873, although ten years were yet to elapse
before the world was to produce silver in excess of gold, almost instantly
the diagram shows the downward trend of silver far, far in excess of any
previous experience.

How was it through all these years with the industrial and financial
condition of France? It would indeed be little to the purpose to prove
that she had maintained the metals at a parity by free coinage, if, in the
meantime, her people had suffered loss. Monometallists tell us that not
only is bimetallism impossible, but that the attempt to maintain it is in
every way hurtful, in fact, disastrous. They point us to the fact that
England is the clearing house of the world; that those whose currency is
not assimilated to that of England are subjected to enormous losses in the
exchange, resulting from fluctuati