CHAPTER III

as in 1797; and, according to the express statement of the report itself, even in the years 1796 and 1797, when the country bankers were making great demands in order to increase their deposits, the market price of gold never rose above the Mint price. These events were therefore one phase of the internal experiences of the country, and have no relation to an international outflow of gold, caused by the heightened ratio which definitely set in in 1794. On the mere ground of first principles, therefore, it is inadmissible to make argumentative use of this event, known as the Bank Restriction, for judgment and illustration in the wider question of bimetallism. Further, the argumentative use that has been made of it—viz. that if from 1773 to 1797 England had possessed a true rather than a halting bimetallic régime, she would have been supplied by its means with an amount of silver that would have increased the metallic reserve and Page 241 strength of the country, and enabled it to avoid suspension—is inadmissible: and the argument itself is untenable. Such bimetallic action supplying silver could only have begun to operate in 1794, three years before the suspension. It could only have operated by substituting one metal for the other, not by adding silver to gold, but by taking away higher valued gold, and furnishing lower valued silver, i.e. by actually decreasing the metallic strength and reserve of the kingdom. And, lastly, there is the peculiar fact still requiring explaining, that the years of the bank restriction, until, that is, the new Mint law of 1816,