The last convention of the Latin Union was held 29 Oct. 1897 and the monetary agreement accepted at that time is tacitly continued from year to year, although practically in abeyance, and it may be denounced at any time by any of the contracting states. According to its terms, the five contracting states have adopted a gold and silver coinage of the same fineness, weight, diameter and current value, and the allowance for wear and tear in each case is the same. The coinage of 5-franc pieces, of gold as well as of silver, is temporarily suspended and the issue of subsidiary silver is, with certain exceptions for special reasons, limited to 7 francs per head of the population of each state. The most im portant exception to this section of the con vention is in the case of Greece, where the issue is limited to 6 francs per head.
It is further agreed between the contracting countries that each government, in all its pub lic offices, shall accept payment in the silver 5-franc pieces of each of the other states, and in the subsidiary silver to an amount not in excess of 100 francs. Moreover, each state engages to exchange the excess of its issues over its receipts of subsidiary silver for gold or 5-franc silver pieces, and each binds itself that, at the termination of the convention, it will resume also its 5-franc silver pieces, pay ing in gold a sum equal to the nominal value of the coin resumed. The only exception to
this section of the treaty is made in the case of Italy, in which the government is freed from this obligation to take back its fractional coins upon the .dissolution of the convention, it being stipulated instead that it will forbid the exportation of such coins while the Union continues and will not change its present sys tem of subsidiary coinage for five years follow ing its separation from the Union.
Other countries which have adopted this monetary system without joining the union are Finland, Rumania, Serbia, Russia and Spain, while the following American countries have as similated their coinage to that of the union — Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. Consult Arnaune, monnaie, le credit et le change> (2d ed., Paris 1902) ; Palgrave, R. H. I., of Political (New York 1900) ; and Willis, H. P., of the Latin Monetary Union) (Vol. II, New York 1900).