pply of gold should
be out of due proportion with silver, its overvaluation will at once
attract gold from other countries until it becomes no more profitable
there than elsewhere. The result is assumed to be a somewhat ready
equalization of values for the territory establishing the standard, so
that the actual fluctuations of the standard unit will follow the line of
lowest prices for either of the metals. The monometalist feels certain
that the actual withdrawal from circulation, and so from use as money, of
the higher priced metal causes greater hardship and probably greater
fluctuations in values of other commodities than any fluctuation of a
single standard can produce.

It is very certain that the commercial world recognizes the tendency
toward a single standard, and that the coinage systems of all civilized
countries are practically, if not in definite form, based upon a single
standard. The countries of wide commerce and extensive credit are using
the gold standard. The less developed countries adhere to the silver
standard. Many which nominally sustain both have, by some legal
restriction in the coinage of silver, become practical supporters of the
gold standard. Few, if any, thorough students of the subject believe it
possible by statute in the present conditions of mining and commerce to
bring the commercial world anywhere back to the ratio of sixteen to one,
established in the United States in 1834. Statute law might declare a
sheep to be equal to a horse, but no power on earth could make it pull as
much. So even agreement among nations, by legal enactments, cannot enforce
an unnatural relation between two products.

NATIONAL STANDARDS OF VALUE, 1899

_Gold_ _Gold, with _Gold or _Silver_
silver limited_ silver_
Great Britain, United States, Haiti, Uruguay, Mexico, Central
Germany, France, Argentine America,
Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Italy, Republic, Columbia,
Denmark, Switzerland, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru,
Austro-Hungary, Greece, India. Spain, Servia, Equador, China,
Roumania, Bulgaria, Hong Kong and
Turkey, Netherlands, Straits, Cochin
Portugal, Algeria, Tunis, China.
Brazil, Canada, Japan, Java,
Newfoundland, etc.,
Egypt, Russia,