Whether the mines would furnish an exces sive amount of silver was question about which no one could speak positively, because no one can foresee new discoveries or estimate the possible exhaustion of mines.
Raising the government price of a precious metal does not necessarily increase the pro duction of it, neither does the lowering of the price necessarily reduce the production. The use of gold and silver as money is the dom inating factor in its value. If, by agreement among all the nations, the legal tender func tion was withdrawn from both gold and sil ver, and other money substituted for them, both would fall in value, as expressed in the new money, just how much no one knows, because a fall in the price of either of the metals would develop new uses and thus in crease the demand, which, in its turn, would react with the supply in determining the ulti mate price. The arguments pro and contra as to the desirability of bimetallism as a monetary system belong properly in the arti cle MONEY.
The United States established the double standard in 1792. France followed in 1803. England adopted the gold standard in 1816 and since then has exerted a controlling in fluence on other European nations whose coin age, however, remained silver for many years. About 1850, France went over to the gold basis and in 1865 the Latin Union adopted the French standard. In 1867 the international money conference at Paris unanimously ac cepted the single standard for co-ordinating the currencies of the countries taking part in that conference. In 1871, after the Franco German War, Germany established the gold standard and demonetized silver. In 1873 the United States formally adopted the gold standard, but in 1878 initiated a monetary convention at Paris to discuss the question of a return to bimetallism. The proposition was rejected. Again, in with the co operation of France, the United States invited the nations to another conference on bimetal lism. England and Germany opposed the change and the movement failed. In 1892 the United States made another attempt at Brus sels to discuss bimetallism, but without result. In 1893 India closed its mints to the free coinage of silver. The elections in 1900 in the United States finally disposed of the question of a double standard and bimetallism disap peared from political controversy.
Bimetallism in the United States.—The bimetallic standard was recommended by Jef ferson and Hamilton and adopted by our gov ernment by a statute approved by Washing ton in 1792. This law provided for the free
and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the ratio of 15 to 1, the coins being equally a legal tender for all debts public and private. The •Spanish milled dollar then in use in this country contained the same amount of pure silver as our present silver dollar and, the ratio of 15 to 1 having been adopted, the gold dollar was made to weigh one-fifteenth as much. The silver dollars then coined are sometimes called the °unit dollars,* because they have on the edge the -inscription: °Hun dred Cents, One Dollar, or Unit.* In 1834 the ratio was changed from 15 to 1 to 15.988 + to 1, which for convenience has been called 16 to 1. The change was made for the purpose 'of checking the exportation of gold, but as the new ratio undervalued silver it made gold the money in general use. This law provided for the free and unlimited coin age of gold and silver into full legal tender money at the new ratio. In 1837 the alloy in the dollar, both gold and silver, was changed from one-twelfth to one-tenth, making the weight of the standard silver dollar 412% grains, nine-tenths fine, and the weight of the standard gold dollar 25 8-10 grains, nine-tenths fine.
As the law of 1834 undervalued silver and led to the exportation of considerable quanti ties of it, it became difficult to keep fractional currency in circulation, and to remedy this the law of 1853 was enacted. By the terms of this law subsidiary silver (that is, coins of less denomination than $1), were reduced from full weight to light weight and made token money, with limited legal tender, in stead of standard money. This law, however, did not change the provision in regard to the standard silver dollar, the free and unlimited coinage of that dollar still continuing. The sub,sidiary silver coins were redeemable in the standard money, either gold or silver. Sometimes the Act of 1834 has been referred to as establishing the gold standard, but this is erroneous. It 'merely changed the ratio and that, too, by reducing the weight of the dearer dollar, not by increasing that of the cheaper dollar. Equally erroneous is the assertion that the Act of 1853 established the gold standard. That did not in the least change the law re lating to the standard money, either gold or silver.