that if in all these countries gold and silver could be freely coined and thus become exchangeable against commodities at the fixed ratio, the market value of silver as measured by gold would conform to that ratio and not vary to any considerable extent.”

Mr. Leonard H. Courtney, one of the monometallist members of that commission who signed the report, has since become an avowed bimetallist, as have many other prominent Englishmen.  Among them may be mentioned Professor Alfred Marshall and Professor Sidgwick, of Cambridge University; Professor Nicholson of Edinburgh; Professor H. S. Foxwell, Professor of Political Economy in University College, London; Professor E. G. Gonner, of Liverpool; Professor J. E. Munro, of Kings College, London; and many others.

Mr. Courtney says, in his article in the Nineteenth Century, April, 1893:  “Is it true that gold is this stable standard?  I was one of the six members of the Gold and Silver Commission who could not see their way clear to recommend bimetallism, and reported:  ’When we look at the character and power of the fall in the price of commodities, we think that the sounder view is that the greater part of the fall has resulted from causes touching the commodities rather than from an appreciation or increase in value of the standard,’ In the same paragraph we had said:  ’We are far from denying that there may have been, and probably has been, some appreciation in gold, though we may hold it impossible to determine its extent.’” Now, then, he goes on to say:  “Let me make a confession.  I hesitated a little about this paragraph.  I thought there was perhaps more in the suggestion of an appreciation of gold than my colleagues believed; but while I thus doubted it, I did not dissent.  I am now satisfied that there has been an appreciation of gold greater than I anticipated when I signed the report, and I should not be able to concur in that same paragraph again.  We have been passing through a period of an appreciation of gold, and no one can tell how long it will last.  This is a serious matter.  The pressure of all debts, private and public, has increased.  The situation is serious.  It is a dream to suppose that gold is stable in value.  It is no more stable than silver.  It has undergone a considerable appreciation in recent years, and industry and commerce have been more hampered by this movement than they would have been had silver been our standard.  Every step taken towards the further demonetization of silver must tend to the enhancement of the value of gold.  It is true that much inconvenience is involved in the use of gold as a standard in some countries, and of silver as a standard in others, with no link to check their divergent relations; but the advantage of having the same monetary standard throughout the world would be counterbalanced if we made gold that universal basis and tied all the fortunes of the nations to it.”