ged and
unsuspected. It cannot take refuge behind the fig-leaves of the law, and
especially not behind a law yet to be made to meet the case.

* * * * *

The argument relied upon in favor of a bimetallic standard as against
a monometallic seems to be that a single-metal standard leaves out
one-half of the world's resources; but the same thing must occur with a
bimetallic standard unless the metals can be placed and kept in a state
of exact equilibrium, or so that nothing can be gained by the exchange
of one for the other. Hitherto this has been an unattainable perfection.
A law fixing the ratio of 16 of silver to 1 of gold, as proposed by
different members of the Commission, would now be a gross over-valuation
of silver and wholly exclude gold from circulation. It will hardly be
disputed that the two metals cannot circulate together unless they are
mutually convertible without profit or loss at the ratio fixed at the
mint. But it is here proposed to start silver with a large legal-tender
advantage above its market value, and with the probability, through
further depreciation, of increasing that advantage by which the
monometallic standard of silver will be ordained and confirmed. The
argument in behalf of a double standard is double-tongued, when in
fact nothing is intended, or can be the outcome, but a single silver
standard. The argument would wed silver and gold, but the conditions
which follow amount to a decree of perpetual divorcement. Enforce the
measure by legislation, and gold would at once flee out of the country.
Like liberty, gold never stays where it is undervalued.

No approach to a bimetallic currency of uniform and fixed value can be
possible, as it appears to me, without the co-operation of the leading
commercial nations. Even with that co-operation its accomplishment and
permanence may not be absolutely certain, unless the late transcendent
fickleness of the supply and demand subsides, or unless the ratio of
value can be adjusted with more consummate accuracy than has hitherto
been found by any single nation to be practicable. One-tenth of one per
cent. difference will always exclude from use one or the other metal;
but here a difference nearly one hundred times greater has been
proposed. The double-standard nations and the differing single gold- or
silver-standard nations doubtless contributed something to the relative
equalization of values so long as they furnished an availabl