ded.

Sixth. On the much-vexed and long-mooted question of a bi-metallic or
mono-metallic standard my own views are sufficiently indicated in the
remarks I have made. I believe the struggle now going on in this country
and in other countries for a single gold standard would, if successful,
produce wide-spread disaster in the end throughout the commercial world.
The destruction of silver as money and establishing gold as the sole
unit of value must have a ruinous effect on all forms of property except
those investments which yield a fixed return in money. These would be
enormously enhanced in value, and would gain a disproportionate and
unfair advantage over every other species of property. If, as the most
reliable statistics affirm, there are nearly seven thousand millions of
coin or bullion in the world, not very unequally divided between gold
and silver, it is impossible to strike silver out of existence as money
without results which will prove distressing to millions and utterly
disastrous to tens of thousands. Alexander Hamilton, in his able and
invaluable report in 1791 on the establishment of a mint, declared that
"to annul the use of either gold or silver as money is to abridge the
quantity of circulating medium, and is liable to all the objections
which arise from a comparison of the benefits of a full circulation with
the evils of a scanty circulation." I take no risk in saying that the
benefits of a full circulation and the evils of a scanty circulation
are both immeasurably greater to-day than they were when Mr. Hamilton
uttered these weighty words, always provided that the circulation is one
of actual money, and not of depreciated promises to pay.

In the report from which I have already quoted, Mr. Hamilton argues at
length in favor of a double standard, and all the subsequent experience
of well-nigh ninety years has brought out no clearer statement of the
whole case nor developed a more complete comprehension of this subtle
and difficult subject. "On the whole," says Mr. Hamilton, "it seems most
advisable not to attach the unit exclusively to either of the metals,
because this cannot be done effectually without destroying the office
and character of one of them as money and reducing it to the situation
of mere merchandise." And then Mr. Hamilton wisely concludes that this
reduction of either of the metals to mere merchandise (I again quote
his exact words) "would probably be a greater evil than occasional