from 1851-67—the period, i.e. , of the great Page 180 gold outputs of Australia and America—as undeviatingly above. From the last-named date until the close of the bimetallic system in France, and, indeed, up to our own days, the course of the commercial ratio has been again unbrokenly below the 15 1⁄2 ratio, and, as is too well known, with an ever-increasing enormity of divergence.
So much for the claim that the French law has dowered the world with a steady ratio.
Secondly, what has been the influence of this divergence of the commercial from the legal ratio upon France's store of precious metals? It has been exactly similar in effect and force with that wielded by similar trains of event and circumstance, in the monetary history of France during the four preceding centuries. The exact official figures of the import and export of gold and silver are not obtainable before 1822, and in a continuous stream not before 1830 (separably for the two metals, that is to say).1
From the latter date, however, the testimony of the figures is as explicit as it is forceful. From 1830 to 1850, while the ratio remained continually below the legal 15 1⁄2, there was a profit on the import of silver, and a persistent and heavy import took place. In 1830 the (balance of the) silver imported amounted to a matter of 6 millions sterling, in Page 181 1831 to 7 1⁄4 millions, in 1834 to 4 millions, in 1837 to over 5 1⁄2 millions, in 1838 to nearly 5 millions, in 1841 to nearly 5