If we find a movement of civilized mankind going on steadily for a
hundred years, working out in different countries uniform results which
commend themselves to successive generations, the presumptions are all
in favor of that movement being beneficial. At all events, the burden
of proof is upon those who think differently. I am so well convinced of
the benefits of the single gold standard that if all power were placed
in my hands I would not introduce anything different from it. I should
consider it presumptuous to attempt to interfere with an obviously
natural evolution in human affairs. I should know, moreover, that such
an attempt would be futile, because the first step to be taken would
be to alter the preferences and likings of individual men. Society
consists of aggregations of individuals, who in their private business
prefer one ounce of gold to sixteen ounces of silver, or twenty-five
ounces, as the case may be. Unless I can change this preference and
liking I cannot alter the monetary standard of Christendom. It is this
preference which paralyzes all the international monetary conferences.
The secret thought of the delegates in the Brussels Conference was
something like this: “What would happen the day after international
bimetallism if the commercial classes should continue to prefer one
ounce of gold to sixteen ounces of silver?” Any responsible minister of
finance must recoil before that query.
I think that the “scramble for gold” would be worse the day after
the bimetallic treaty than it was the day before, because everybody
would suspect everybody else of gratifying his secret desire for
gold at the expense of his neighbors. It should be remarked that
the Brussels Conference, as a body, never touched the question of
bimetallism, although some of the members improved the opportunity to
make speeches on that subject. The Conference went to pieces on a minor
question--that of buying a little more silver. The proposal was that
the nations should purchase a certain amount of an article that none
of them wanted. When the representatives of France and the Latin Union
had the intrepidity to say that they would not recommend that policy
to their governments, even if it should be adopted, the bottom dropped
out of the Conference altogether. Although Mr. Bland has given his
attention to this matter as a humorist, in a magazine article, I think
that he has come short of exhausting the subject.