We are told that the United States, unaided, can not, if it would,
restore silver to a parity with gold--that no one nation acting alone
can achieve so difficult a feat. But it is incapable of denial that
throughout all vicissitudes of production of gold and silver from 1803
to 1873 the law of France--one nation alone--accomplished it.
As I have shown in greater detail elsewhere, by reference to the table
of annual production of the metals, it will be observed that from 1803
to 1820, the production was in the proportion of four dollars of silver
to one of gold; from 1821 to 1840 two of silver to one of gold, from
1841 to 1850 one dollar of silver, to one of gold, from 1851 to 1860
four dollars of gold to one of silver, from 1861 to 1865 three of gold
to one of silver, from 1866 to 1870 two of gold to one of silver, in
1871 and 1872 one-and-a-half of gold to one of silver. Notwithstanding
these extreme variations in the relative annual production the law of
France constituted a ligature sufficient to hold the metals in line at
the ratio of 15-1/2 to 1, and this not for France alone but for the
whole world. If that period does not offer sufficient proof of the power
of law, under varying conditions of supply, to tie the metals together
and keep them so, no degree of proof will suffice, for the vacillations
of their relative production have been greater during this century than
at any former period in the history of the world.