MR. CHAPLIN ON BIMETALLISM.
Lro THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—In your notice of Mr. Chaplin's speech on Bimetallism you remark that "it is evident that when Germany abandoned the silver standard, the Latin Union could not hold its ground." It is a fact that the Latin Union did not hold its ground, but where is the evidence that it could not ?
Germany commenced its operations in 1872, immediately after the war with France, and the action of France was not guided by the cool, calm light of economical science, but by feelings of bitter animosity against Germany. France was determined that Germany should not exchange its silver for gold by the aid of the bimetallic system, and was able, by limiting the coinage of silver, and thus destroying that system, to make the German operation a very expensive one, so expensive that it has been only imperfectly carried out. But it yet remains to be proved that had France and the Latin Union, and, it may be added, the United States, maintained their bimetallic system, that system could not have withstood the test, seeing that it had withstood severer trials in the previous seventy years. These trials consisted in the extreme variations in the relative production of gold and silver, and in the relative cost of the two metals.
It is admitted that to maintain the bimetallic system it must be in force over a sufficiently important area to ensure a very large demand for gold and silver respectively at the fixed ratio ; and it is certain that were England, Germany, the United States, France, and the other countries of the Latin Union to combine in adopting that system, the field of bimetallism would be more than sufficient to ensure its permanence under any conceivable circumstances which past experience shows to be likely to arise.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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