smaller silver coinage. Our silver monnaie d'appoint of .835 fine was created for this purpose."
To regard this question from a theoretic and international point of view, to the exclusion of any regard for the separate national interests of France, is a sheer absurdity. It mattered little or nothing to France that by unloading the stores of silver she happened to possess at the time of the gold discoveries of the Fifties she helped to steady the ratio for the world at large. It did however matter, and very much, that this process of exchange from the one metal to the other was attended with public loss, balanced only by illicit private gain, and with a disturbance of trade in every town of France Page 188 through the disappearance of the smaller silver specie. Whether or not France or any other country is called upon to sacrifice herself thus—not once but every time the ratio fluctuates from below to above the legal ratio or vice versa—for the sake of an ideal, bimetallic, regulating, function, let common sense decide.
The French monetary commission of 1867 speaks thus of the situation—
"It is well known by all that this ratio [of 1803] by the simple reason of its being fixed could not remain correct. There was quickly a premium on gold, and silver remained almost alone in circulation until near 1850. The discovery of the mines of California and Australia suddenly changed this situation by throwing into the European market a very considerable quantity of gold. By the side of this force, which tended to create