international conference. This latter proposition was expressed in the compromise known as the Bland Bill, the "Act to authorise the Page 280 coinage of the standard silver dollar, and to restore its legal tender character, 28th February 1878." Section 2 of this law imposed it upon the President of the United States to invite the members of the Latin Union and the other interested nations to an international conference. On the invitation of France this conference met in Paris on 10th August 1878. The American delegates proposed the free coinage of silver in an international agreement and its unrestricted employ on a full equality of tender with gold. The delegates of Belgium, Switzerland, and Norway combated the proposals, and, on the part of England, Mr. Goschen declared that while the complete demonetisation of silver portended a commercial crisis to which no parallel could be found, England could consent to no serious modification of her currency system. Germany was not represented, and in her absence France adopted a waiting policy, and the conference closed with an impotent expression of opinion that, in view of the difference of opinion, it was useless to discuss an international ratio, and that, while it was necessary for the world to maintain the currency of silver, the choice and treatment of each or either metal must be left to the particular monetary situation and needs of each separate state.
It was not to be expected that so lame a conclusion could stand before the needs of the situation. On the 19th May 1879 the landed interest in Germany succeeded in