Silver and gold and their relation to the problem of resumption

Front matter

rJ.riY

atljara, SJ. H.

ffitbtaty

Dedication

In the Debate in the House of Representatives, on the Legal Tender Act, at "Washington, on February 5, 1862, Hon. V. B. HoRTON, of Ohio, said, among others, the following words :

If this bill passes, as I hope and pray it will not, this will be a point from which we shall date a new financial system in the United States

Being a member of the Committee of Ways and Means, I have been engaged in working according to the best of my ability, saying nothing, . . . but I wish to utter my voice of warning against being driven by a supposed and asserted imperious necessity into this measure. ';

Contents

CHAPTEE I.

Intbodttctort 13

CHAPTEE II.

Appendix

A. The Theory of Monet — A Personal Explanation — Postscript to

THE Second Edition 153

B. Bl-METALLISM AND THE STANDARD OF DESIDERATA 155

C. Of Merohandise-monet, Paper-monet, and Credit 157

D. The Fall of Siltek ts. The Rise op Gold — Price and Pur-

chasing Power op Demonetized Metal and op Legal Tender... 159

E. Valorimetre, Etaluateur, and Instrument of Valuation 161

F. FuNGiBiLiTT, Freedom op Trade, and Demonetization 163

G. Aristotle, Locke, and Newton on Monet 168

H. ExTBBMES OP Opinion concerning the Influence op Law upon the

Value of Commodities used as Money — The Laissez-paire Theort

and iwan possoschkow 169

I. A LATE Utterance of Professor Soetbeeb, and Queries suggested

BY IT 174

J. Senator Jones on an International Standard Contention 178

K. The Present State of Debate , 179

L. The Silter Bill in Congress 183

M. A Partial List of Works treating op the Qttestions discussed

IN this Essat Igg

N. Errata 195

INTRODUCTOEY, 13

CHAPTER!.

INTRODUCTOET.

" No reason can be more urgent in inducing a nation to alter its Money Standard, than the fact that other nations have introduced changes in their Monetary Systems which threaten injury or destruction to the prosperity of their neighbors."

So wrote, in the year 1761, a Privy Councillor for finance of Frederick the Great of Prussia.

In those days. Silver being, according to this authority, an important product of German mines, "the interests of Germany demanded that she shoijld further with the greatest zeal the raising of the price of Silver." *

To-day, upon grounds partly political and partly economical, an opposite policy has prevailed in Berlin.

Sectionalism and the Silver Standard were identified with the Germany of the past, while, for the new order of things, the Gold Standard presented itself ready to act as a powerful agent in the consolidation of the new Empire.f

Successful as a political measure, as an economical measure, except as a unification of the German Systems, the Coinage Eeform has not been a success ; the Silver Thaler bids fair to remain in circulation for years, and Germany has herself borne a share in those economic consequences of a change in Monetary. Systems which weigh upon the world in a manner so aptly illustrating the acumen of the Prussian Councillor.

On every side of the planet, in every language, men are discuss-

f'More closely than one would believe, is the maintenance of the Silver Standard bound up with our former condition as a League of States, and the introduction of the Gold Standard, which would be endangered even were the different States to have the right of coining Silver change, is far more closely allied than one would suppose, with Emperor and Empire. (Kaiser und Eeich.) Knies. Das Geld, p. 242.

ing the dangers to their prosperity which may arise from changes in the Monetary Systems of other countries, and are debating what may be the wisest policy for themselves.

While Gold Dollars are coining in Japan, the varying Gold price of Silver which agitates Xew York and Paris, excite a like interest in Melbourne and Bombay, and a National Bank President writes a book upon " The Money Question " in the atmosphere of the Spice Islands.*

Philosophic historians have long been wont to point out the civilizing influence of commercial intercourse, but it has been reserved for these latter days, with one touch of nature, by self-interest, to "make the whole world kin," and by the solidarity of the Money-market sharply to enforce upon the populations of the entire planet the necessity of union and mutual support.

The course of instruction has been a severe one ; a myriad of lives have been blasted through the fluctuations of values and paralysis of industry of the past few years;. in producing which Monetary Legislation has been so important a factor ; but for the enduring generations, of course, the gain will be great, if only the lesson be comprehended.

Unfortunately for mankind, the out-look in this regard is not encouraging. The guiding self-interest of the nations shows but little sign of new enlightenment, and fully to take this lesson to heart is to admit that a ruling majority, in leading nations, may, on a large scale, be mistaken both in its economical theories and in its ascertainment of facts.

The general disposition to demonetize Silver, manifested by the civilized nations, was itself a declaration of war with the interests of the so-called semi-civilized nations, and indifference to the moral claims of Asia, on the part of Christendom, is inauspicious. Within the circle of the Western Nations, the adoption of Gold by Germany, emulating, after many years, the example of England, has, in a manner, compelled other nations, if only in self-defense, to join the movement.

And yet, even had the anticipations of an increased annual product of Gold been realized (as they have not been), the change, tending, as it must, to increase the value of Gold, as well as to diminish the value of Silver, meant that millions who had sown should not reap, and that many should reap who had not sown ; while, in the main, it meant, in the Western World, profit to cred-

'' Van der Berg. Te Muntquestie, Batavia, 1876.

IJSTTEODUCTORY. 15 itors at the expense of debtors ; profit to Europe at the expense of the United States; profit to specie-paying, at the expense of non- Bpecie-paying nations.

In causing a fluctuation of values, it discouraged enterprise; in promising, in the degree to which Gold-monometallism should be established, a rise in the value of Money, it checked productive industry.

Such, at least, -were the views of the minority of thinkers who were overruled.

For it was not without clear warning and prophesy of evil that this movement was entered upon ;* and the present hope for united action in a common interest rests less upon faith in equity than upon the chance that the self-interest of the various nations may be awakened to a sense of personal danger.

The times do not, therefore, seem to be favorable to that union and mutual support which self-interest, if it were sufiiciently enlightened, would counsel to all members of the brotherhood of nations. '

M. Feer-Herzog, the distinguished representative of the Swiss Republic in the Latin Monetary Union, in addressing a monetary commission in Paris, said " there are thus two milliards of silver (in Germany and Austria) which demand that they be converted into Gold : because the States which possess them are resolved to adopt the Gold standard.

" This danger will reproduce itself in the case of other States which may exchange their Silver for Gold.

" As this tendency is general in Europe a steeple-chase [sic] will before long be inaugurated.

" The State which demonetizes first will do so with but little loss, while the State which shall have hesitated and waited will undergo the losses resulting from the demonetizations which have preceded its own, and so will pay for all the rest."

He adds : " The German authors have perfectly understood and explained the advantage which will accrue to their country from acting speedily, while the States of the Union still hold to the Double Standard."!

This was said in the spring of 1870, while Napoleon was still Emperor at Paris.

* See Wolowski. L'or et L' Argent, 1863. Seyd, Bullion, etc., 1868. t Feer-Herzog La France et ses allies monetaires, etc., Paris, 1870, p. 71. See also Knies Das Geld, p. 242.

16 SILVER ADD GOLD.

A few years later French Gold had enabled united Germany to inaugurate this steeple-chase ; while still later, France, with her allies, refusing to become the passive instrument of Germany's self interest, has, economically speaking, to carry out M. Feer-Herzog's figure, by deferring specie payment, and limiting in the Latin Union the coinage of Silver, put Germany into the ditch, merely, us a Frenchman has said, "to defend herself from the Prussian maneuvre."

The northwestern countries of Europe followed Germany, and the adoption of the Gold Standard by the United States was marked by the coinage for export of a Trade Dollar, whose changed relation to the Gold dollar, seemed to point the way to a depreciation of silver.

This general demonetization, which, although to a great degree merely nominal, yet closed to Silver the markets of the Western World, was not slow in causing an eddy in the Gold price of Silver, to which force was added by an increase of annual product and a check of export to India, and which has seemed to open up a bottomless abyss, and to the fancies of many makes the entire sea of Silver Prices unnavigable.

England, moved by the distress of her great dependency, as well as by the danger to herself of a rise in Gold, now begins to appreciate a situation which is the natural result of the application of her great example, and hopes that something will be done for Silver.

This, in fact, may be taken as a homely statement of the prevalent feeling in the brotherhood of nations ; each hopes that some other will do something for the common good ; or, as was said by a leading authority, as long ago as January, 1875, " either that one of the great Gold-using nations will abandon the Gold Standard, or that the supply from the mines may be increased."*

The latter remark suggests an opportunity for fame unique in history. The unanimous applause of the world awaits the discoverer of new Gold mines.

In the meantime that wave of convincing argument in favor of Gold-monometallism which had swept over the Western World, and the force of which was largely due to the asserted permanence of the value of Gold, bids fair to be overwhelmed by simple facts which point to a rise in its value — a signal and irrefragable proof of its non-exemption from the common fate of mutability.

* London Economist, January 16, 1875.

INTRODUCTORY. 17

The situation of the American Union at this juncture, standing, as she does, at the threshold, not merely of Eesumption of Specie Payment, but of a contest, scientific as well as political, between the manifold forces of the Assignat,* the Bank Note, and the Specie Certificate, imposes upon American thinkers a burden of peculiar responsibility.

Paper Money Inflation in its more repulsive forms has been scotched, but not killed, by the blows which the honesty and common sense of the people have dealt, and others of the hydra-heads are ready to rise.

Indeed, what has been achieved is merely a preparation for a new order of questions, which, for their proper handling, require a special study and acumen which, in the contest against an overissue of Promissory Notes, as Legal Tender, was, strictly speaking, not necessary.

If I mistake not, the former champions of sound currency have not as yet, in public discussion, shown themselves equal to this new occasion.-}-

In the public press, for example, what, for convenience, may be characterized as a " Cockney School," resting on its laurels of past loyalty to sound currency, has made itself conspicuous on the side of Gold-monometallism, by an exceptional absence of knowledge and ratiocination combined with violence of feeling.J

In proclaiming themselves, however, as the elect custodians of the public credit, the representatives of this curious phase of opinion

■* I use the word Assignat instead of Greenback to avoid confusion. The existing Greenback has a distinct Individuality ; being a product of the Civil War, and limited in amount. A new issue must differ from this in character so entirely that it deserves a new name.

1 1 refer, of course, to public discussion outside of the Debates in Congress.

As to the latter, see a brief notice, page 49.

I should also add, the editorial columns of the daily Cincinnati Commercial have brought acuteness and learning to bear upon the Silver Question, and I should make a like acknowledgment in reference to the Banker^ Magazine, of New York.

The above characterization of the State of Debate in the text was written in the summer of ] 876. Since then, I am glad to admit, the scene has changed (see Appendix 179) ;but I have left the passage as first printed.

t There is a tone in some expressions of this school which really seems only compatible with a sort of parvenu sensitiveness, as if there were an air of "good society" about the yellow metal, which promised advancement to the advocacy of the exclusive use of It as Money, and as if there were something derogatory in "having anything to do with" Silver.

18 SILTEE AND GOLD.

have, although in a manner which mars their influence, reinforced the most wholesome element in the discussion.

On the other hand, much crudeness has likewise been put forth in advocacy of the unconditional restoration of the Old Silver Dollar, as the " Dollar of the Fathers."

Like many popular cries, this, however excellent in its sphere, threatens to distract attention from points of the situation of far more import to the interests of the people than the fixing of the number of grains of Silver in a Coin ; and men are led into danger of forgetting that legislation is for the present and for the future, and not for the past.

In the meantime, that shining array of misdirected talent which has obstructed the Eestoration of a Spe/!ie Basis is gathering its forces and changing sides around this new order of questions, and threatens to naturalize a Mexican anarchy in our Finances.

In this state of the controversy it has occurred tothe writer to hope that the following result of studies undertaken in the intervals of professional business for the purpose of obtaining a clear view of the situation, might not be without use as a contribution to debate.

Postscript. — To the Gentle Eeader, if such there be for a subject and work like this, I desire to say that I approached this question, as far as I can remember, without prepossessionsfand that I have aimed to be a servant of truth. I have endeavored to look at the questions, not narrowly, but in their wider I'elations to the future, and to comprehend the arguments on the various sides.

Although thus recording my views, I have not shut" my mind to new light upon the subject. I am sensible of many imperfections in this Essay, and shall be indebted for proof of whatever of error there may be in what I have written.

PoMEROY, Ohio, September, 1876.

Note. — It is proper, in justice to the various authors whom I have quoted in the course of this essay, that I should call the reader's attention to the fact that the italics, or rather, the "spacings" in these quotations, are my own.

*See Appendix A.

Chapter II. The Stock On Hand And Annual Supply Of The Precious Metals

Popular impressioDB in reference to supply of Money^PreBent and future— Opinion of Soetbeer as to rdte of statistics of MDney-..-EBtimates of Chevalier and Soetboer of total production up to 1848^Eatimatesof Tooke - Newmarch, Seyd, Xeller, Chevalier — Annual product at different perioda — Aunual product siuce the Gold Discoveries — Annual consumption — Metallic circulation in Western World — Amount exported to Asia — Estimate of total stock now in the hands of man — Annual loss.

To many minds, it would seem that a sort of "divinity doth hedge" the Kingly Metals from the profane curiosity of man — some mysterious quality, to which testify their indestructibility, their seeming providential discovery and distribution, and .the eagerness with which in all ages of the world men have sought for them, whatever their price.

It is probably owing to a belief of this kind — perhaps only half-consciously entertained — that, from many men who are thoroughly familiar with the difficulty which individuals feel in getting Money, the idea that the whole world may suffer in this same way does not find ready assent.

The excuse for the sway of the one idea and the rejection of the other, is briefly expressed in the saying omne ignotum pro magnifico.

It is simply because they do not kdow what the amount on hand is, and can not forecast what the annual product will be in the future, that they refuse to consider that the supply may fail.

But, of course, the Legislator is no more " above statistics " than, in the story, the Emperor Sigismund, in his blundering speech, was, in reality, " above grammar ; " and it needs no serious argument to prove that estimates of the stock of the Precious Metals have the merit which estimates usually have.

" Every one who busies himself, for any time, and with earnestness, about questions connected with Money, will come to the conclusion, first, that statistical estimates of the production and amount in circulation of the Precious Metals, albeit, in spite of all the labor and care expended on them, they remain incomplete, yet are positively indispensable for every discussion upon the fluctuations of Prices ; and, secondly, that amounts given as conclusions from

SILVER AND GOLD.

general reasonings on tbia subject, can only be considered as bold attempts at an approximate estimate."*

Such is the opinion of Soetbeer, one of the foremost authorities upon such questions, whose exertions for the reformation of German currency, begun thirty years ago, were crowned with succesr? in the unification of German coinage.

True, for aught we can tell, Africa may annul all calculations by playing in the future the part which Siberia, California, and Australia have filled in the central portion of this century ; and, in the meantime, in Spain and in Guiana, the hopes of goldseekers are said to have risen to fever-heat.

Be that as it may, the annual product has hitherto been but a small percentage of the stock on hand ; the present and the past remain controlling elements of that practical decision which can, at best, look but a few years forward ; and it is plain no reckoning without one's host can be more inexcusable than, in deciding upon the employment of this or that material for Money, to omit to take counsel of the Statistics of Supply.

For the total production up to the year 1848, Soetbeer quotes from Chevalier, an estimate of which the following is a reduction in dollars, taking the mark-banco at 36.100 of the silver dollar, and 37.100 of the gold dollar :

GOLD.

SILVER.

TOTAL GOLD

AND

SILVEK.

22200000 503200000

59200000

$5261040000

381600000

63360000

Europe exclusive of IRussiai

RS.'ifiOOOO

Africa oxid. Islands

503200000

Stock on Hand in Middle Ages....

144000000

203200000

$2686940000

$5850000000

$8536940000

Opinions vary widely, as Soetbeer remarks, upon what proportion of this grand total was still in circulation in 1848 among the Western Nations.

The amount can, however, he says, hardly be estimated at more than 2920 million dollars. Of the remainder, more than half, he

* Beitrage und Materialien zur Beurtbeilung von Geld und Bank Fragen, p. Ill, note. Hamburg, 1855. See Appendix I.

STOCK AND ANNUAL SUPPLY.

estimates, has been exported to Asia, while less than half remains to be accounted for by loss through wear and tear and consumption in the arts.

In Tooke-Newmarch's History of Prices, Mr. liTewmarch estimates the total amount of Gold and Silver in the Western World, in all forms, as follows :

[In Million Dollars.]

Gold

1716.9 3094.3

Total (lold and Silvei-

4811.2

This estimate is decidedly larger than that of Soetbeer, who would appear to allow only about 5 billion to the total stock of Europe, Africa, and America. It also exceeds that of Chevalier and Xeller.

Ernest Seyd gives, for 1868, £700 millions of Gold, £550 millions of Silver, as the total amount of Money in use in the world.

Michel Chevalier (in the second edition of La Monnaie, 1866, p. 574), gives, as an estimate of the total amount of Gold and Silver in the Western World (au pouvoir de la civilisation occidentale),

Friedrich Xeller, one of the leading German writers upon the subject, gives the following estimate for the same year :* [Five Figures omitted.]

STOCK IN -WESTBKN NATIONS.

IN CIKCTTLATION.

USED OTHERWISE

Gold

$37442 28424

$25476 12903

$11966

15521

Xotal

$65866

$38379

$27487

«• F. Xeller, Die Frage der Internationalen Miinzeinigung. Stuttgart, 1869.

SILVEE AND GOLD.

Soetbeer gives (in the work above cited) the following estimates for total annual production of the Precious Metals. His estimates are here stated in dollars, estimating the mark-banco at 36^ cents :

About the year 1500 1550

$ 730000

2920000

1600 10950000

1650 17155000

1100 22265000

1750 35710000

1800 55480000

1850 129575000

"With reference to the annual product of the mines, since the era of the Gold Discoveries, while the divergence of authority is not very great, yet agreement has not yet been attainable.

The following table is the fruit of a discussion carried on in the columns of the London Daily News, in which Mr. Hendriks, well and favorably known in connection with the Gold question, took part. Both parties finally agreed upon this table.*

■* M. A. N. Bernadakis, of Athens, in his work, " De la Quantite des Metaux Preoieux et du chiffre des Monnaies," etc. (Paris, 1875), gives the following estimate for total production of Gold and Silver:

Weight in kilograms. Valiie in million francs.

Stock, in 1492

Amer. production, 1492 to 1848 Other countries, 1492 to 1848 ...

Total product, 1848 to 1874

Gold.

Wt. Val,

13,801,245

2,500 10,026

8,552 26,414

47,492

Silver.

"Wt.

11,261,261

122,050,724

20,402,000

51,273,000

204,986,985

Val.

2,500 27,122

4,529 11,383

4.5,534 val. at

1 to

Vol

93,026

For wear, and tear, and loss, M. Bernadakis is disinclined to make any large deduction.

In the Documents relatifs a la question monetaire, published (folio, Bruxelles, 1874), as a Report to the Belgian House from the Minister of Finance, M. Malou, a table is given (page 165), taken from the Keport of the Swedish Monetary Commission of 1869, in which the annual destruction in the Western World for 1867 is placed at 17,800 kilograms of Gold, and 415,100 kilograms of Silver. This is equal to a destruction, in the Western World alone, of an amount equal to 8 per cent of the total annual product of Gold for 1867, and 25 per cent, of the total annual product of Silver.

STOCK AND ANNUAL SUPPLY.

ESTIMATES Or TOTAL ANNUAL PKODUCT, 1852-1875, IN MILLIONS OF DOLLARS (371.25 GRAINS OP PURE SILVER AND 23.20 GRAINS PURE GOLD).*

122|

130|

142|

120^

I20i

112|

98 100

SILVER.

TOTAL.

■38 m

162^

162|

161^

60|

154*

*"The estimates of the London Economist give less, those of Soetheer greater amounts than the "compromise table" ahove given.

The Beport of the Committee of the House of Commons on the Fall of the Gold Price of Silver gives the following table (Appendix, 21, i), which seems to have been prepared by the Bureau of Statistics :

THE world's PKODUCTION OP GOLD AND SILVER BY TEARS AND EPOCHS SINCE 1848.

Tears and Epochs.

Gold.

Silver.

Gold& Silver.

Million Dollars.

Million Dollars.

Million Dollars.

]849

26-4 58-3 86-4

43-9 43-3 42-6

70-3

101-6

171-1 57-03

129-8 43-26

300-9

100-3

SILVER AND GOLD.

152-5

ISoS

172-3

188-9

189-9

183-8

674-2 134-84

213-2 42-64

887-4

177-48

179-1

163-2

154-3

155-6

157-9

558-0 111-6

2521 50-42

810-1

Annual Average.,,,,..,..

162-02

102-4

101-1

98-9

98-2

58-3 63-8 67-4 68-9 691

160-7

1863 ,

165-4

168-5

1865 ,

167-8

167-3

502.2 100-44

327-5 65-5

829-7

165-94

981 98 9 99-0 98-6 97-2

1'870

491-8 98-36

349-3 69-86

841-1 168-22

94-8 92

89 87.4

73-4 74-7 762 77-7

168-2 167-0 1661 165-1

364-4 91-1

302-0

75-5

666-4 166-6

Annual Averaee

2,761-7 102-29

1,573-9 58 29

4,335-6 160-58

Of the annual consumption of the Precious Metals, suflSce it to say here, that the destruction, as far as human uses are concerned, is variously estimated at -^^i, (Tooke-Newmarch), or ^^^ (J- E- Mc- Culloch) for each year of the total stock on hand.

Xeller gives estimates both at ^ per cent, and J per cent., but leans to the latter. Upon the total product of the world, from 1492 to 1848, which Xeller fixes at about 8470 million dollars (including 200 million for the European stock in 1492), a yearly loss of J per cent, would give a total loss of about 1477 millions; while a yearly loss of J per cent, gives a total of 2427 millions.

The report of the Swedish Parliamentary Commission is said to have adopted J per cent, as its basis of calculation.

As to the second form of " consumption " of the Precious Metals, namely, their employment in the arts, the estimates of Xeller (following McCulloch, Eoswag, and Du Puynode) reach a sum of about 39 million dollars per annum for Europe and America.

For circulation in the western world Xeller gives the following

table :

[In Million Francs.]

GOLD AND SILVER.

1803 : 10000

l«47 imol 5000 Gold.

iQKr o„in„r 13200 Gold.

It will be observed that these estimates restrict themselves in the main to the stock on hand in Europe, Africa, and America, and throw but partial light upon the reservoirs of Asia, except as indicated by the portion of the total product since 1500, known or believed to have been exported thither.

Among the estimates of the total amount of Gold in the hands of man, is one quoted by Ernest Seyd (in his work Bullion and the Foreign Exchanges, 1868) ; according to which this amount was, in 1868, in valae, £1200 millions or 5820 million dollars.

This amount, as this author remarks, would weigh 10500 tons (of 2000 lbs.), and would fill out a cubic block about 26 feet each way.

The total amount of Silver has been the subject of estimates which vary more widely, perhaps, than any others, extending, according to Seyd, from 500 to 2000 million sterling.

The unknown factors of the problem, are, of course, to be sought in Asia, whose ancient civilizations, while they must have destroyed.

yet certainly have accumulated quantities of metal of which it is impracticable to attain trustworthy accounts. That Gold is also hold in large quantities seems probal)le, but it appears certain that the total stock of Gold in Asia is but a fraction in value of the iSilver there held.

Of the total product of the world, from 1492 to 1848, Xeller estimates 28 per cent, as exported to Asia, and since then this percentage has been from time to time exceeded. To the demand for Indian cotton during our civil war, is mainly to be attributed an increased exportation to India, which, from 1860 to 1866, absorbed considerably more than the entire Silver product of those years.

It is farther stated, upon apparently good authority, that, from 1867 to 1874, more than one-half of the yearly product of Silver was absorbed by India.

Quenstedt, a German author, gives the total stock of Silver in the world, in 1868, at about 7340 million dollars.*

The following may serve as an estimate of the total stock in the hands of man in 1876.

I ask the reader's attention at the start, however, to the fact that it is confessedly a crude approximation, of no value of its own, apart from that which is given by the authorities upon which it is based.

The assumption of 500 millions of Gold and 1000 million=i of Silver, as the stock in Asia and the Islands, in 1492, is one /or which I can give no data.

A recurrence to the opinion of Soetbeer, cited in the beginning of this chapter, will, I hope, justify this bold attempt at an approximate estimate.

To be secure in reasoning upon such a basis, it is of course desirable that one should understand, as nearly as may be, where the weak points are in his estimate, and so when inquiry asks for results dependent on facts thus weaklj'' evidenced one should make his conclusions correspond with the indeterminate character of his premises.

* M. Quenstedt. Die neuen Deutschen Miinzen. Berlin, 1872.

STOCK AND ANNUAL SUPPLY.

Estimate of the Pkeciotts Metals now in the Hands oi' Man.

GOLD.

SILYEE.

GOLD.

SILVER.

TOTAL.

Total stock in Europe, civilized Africa, and America, in 1848.

Total stock in Asia, in 1492, estimated at

2500 1038

Total new product absorbed by Asia (Seller), 1492 to 1848....

Total for Asia, up to 1848

Total loss, 1492 to 1848, estimated at 20 "oer cent

Total in Asia, 1848

Total product, 1848 to 1876

Deduct total loss, 1848 to 1876,

3102 250

1268 250

Total increase 1848 to 1876

12990

If, then, this be the total amount of the Precious Metals in the hands of man, the estimate of ^ per cent, would give about 32^ million, and the estimate of ^ per cent, would give about 65 million, as the annual loss.

If, then, we accept Xeller's estimate that 2547^ million dollars worth of Gold were, in 1866, in use for purposes of exchange in the Western World, it would seem not remote from fact to assume that in the ten years that have since elapsed this stock has been augmented to 3000 million, by additions of new Gold, import from Asia, and melting down of manufactured articles.