In 1857 the German states and Austria demonetized gold; and had it not
been for the opposition of France, which insisted on retaining the
double standard, the movement might have become general on the
continent. With England, however, nothing could be done. More than a
generation had passed since it had declared for the single standard of
gold, and its creditors and income classes--the shrewdest, most adept,
and watchful of financiers--did not believe that the large yields of
gold would long continue.
The creditor classes of the continent, finding England immovable and
realizing that the object sought by the English creditors was identical
with their own, namely, the increase in the value of money and the
depression of prices, concluded that the common purpose could be as well
served by the demonetization of one as by that of the other. This
conclusion was emphasized by developments on the Comstock lode whose
bountiful and beneficent yield of silver was the fitting supplement to
the great discoveries of gold on the Pacific coast. The danger of a
decline in the value of money was more imminent than ever. The
annuitants became alarmed. Commissions were sent from Europe to the
Pacific coast to investigate the subject. The United States, too, sent
a commissioner to examine into the condition and prospects of the
Comstock, and, imbued with many of the characteristics of De Quincey and
Chevalier, the United States commissioner, in 1868, reported that if all
other mines were worked with the machinery used on the Comstock "their
yield would flood the world."
Like many of the present opponents of silver he was endowed with the
gift of prophecy, and accordingly we find him confidently predicting
that other and innumerable rich lodes of silver would be found on the
Pacific coast which would be worked with great profit. The attack on
gold was immediately changed to a combined attack on silver. From that
period till the present no means have been left untried to belittle and
degrade that metal, and also to disparage those who are in favor of
continuing it as one of the money metals of the world.
It was then announced with all the dogmatism of authority that silver
was unfit to be used as money. Defects were suddenly discovered in it
that the scrutiny of three thousand years had failed to disclose. Its
weight and bulk were found to be insuperable obstacles to its use as
money. Yet the specific gravity of silver is no greater now than it has
been for all the ages during which it has been used as money by all
mankind, nor is it any heavier or more bulky than it was in 1851 or
1857, when Belgium, Germany, and Austria demonetized gold and made the
"heavy," "bulky," and "inconvenient" metal, silver, their only money
metal. Silver can now be transported from place to place with less risk
and at no greater expense than gold, and at much less cost than at any
previous period in the history of the world.
The objection that silver is too heavy for the pocket is an objection
common to all metallic money. We see hardly any gold in circulation in
this country--infinitely less than of silver. When our people have a
choice as to the form in which they will take money they prefer paper
representatives as being the most convenient. The extraordinary
perfection to which the arts of the engraver and paper maker have been
brought gives paper money a security against counterfeiting and
imitation far superior to any immunity which can be claimed for the
metals. The marvellous inventions of modern times in the form of safes
and vault-locks render it a matter of practically no risk to store the
metals, both silver and gold, so that paper representatives of them may
be issued. These representatives are preferred by the general mass of
the people, and have almost entirely occupied the channels of
circulation to the exclusion of both metals. A silver certificate for
$1,000 weighs no more than a gold certificate for the same amount.