and to make it once more, until at least the lapse of a long period of years shall have shown (what is very improbable) that the present disturbance is but a momentary accident not likely to be repeated, the material of coinage legal tender for all amounts, would be to disconcert all the calculations of commerce, derange all the operations of business, and entail upon the country widespread disaster reaching every class of society.

The committee have no design to exhaust the argument upon the subject under consideration. That would require an examination of the causes which have operated to affect the price of silver, the probability of their permanence, and the degree to which their action in the future is likely to be regular or irregular. To pursue these inquiries would be to distract attention from the single point to which it is the desire of the committee to draw the attention of the Association at the present time. They reserve to themselves the privilege of going more fully into the subject at a future meeting, should not the questions which it involves, so deeply concerning the credit of the government and the general welfare of the people, be in the meantime satisfactorily disposed of.

One point, however, connected with this last aspect of the subject, should not be overlooked even in this cursory view. It has been said above that the discount on bills of credit, the liquidation of which is distant or doubtful, measures the inconvenience of the delay, or the hazard of the ultimate loss. If such a bill were immediately convertible into the coin it promises, there would be no discount. It would be accepted in business transactions for precisely that amount of coin; and, because of its greater portability, would in general be preferred to coin. The greenback bills of credit of the Government, if now redeemable on demand, would be worth one hundred cents to the dollar. The uncertainty in the centres of commerce as to the time when they shall be redeemed, or as to the question whether they shall ever be redeemed at all, is represented at present by a fluctuating discount of from ten to twelve per cent.; so that the greenback dollar is only accepted in the affairs of commerce for an amount varying from eighty-eight to ninety cents. Should the silver dollar of 4124 grains of standard metal be made legal tender for all amounts, its value at present would be about the same as that of the greenback dollar at present-say ninety cents-also. Then, if the greenback should be made immediately redeemable,

its purchasing power would remain unaltered, or it would continue to be worth in the market ninety cents. But if it should not be immediately redeemable—if it should continue to be subject to the same uncertainty as at present in regard to the time of its redemption or the question of its ultimate redemption at all, its purchasing power would fall below that of the silver dollar, by as large a percentage as it is now below that of the gold dollar; and it would actually be worth as money only from about seventy-eight to eighty cents. Moreover, should silver in the continual oscillations of its value, touch once more the point it reached no longer ago than July last, the silver dollar would itself be worth but eighty cents, and the greenback dollar would fall to seventy.

The effect of this sudden degradation in the value of the only currency available to our people at the present time, upon the immediate means of subsistence of all who labor for wages, or are dependent on fixed salaries for support, need hardly be pointed out. The income of every such person would be reduced by an amount which, should silver again descend to and remain at the minimum level of the past summer, may be as great as twenty per cent., and which certainly, should it continue at its present price, must be not less than ten. On the other hand the holders of merchandize of every description, including the necessary supplies of life, in order to protect themselves against loss, must raise their prices; and this, in view of the instability of the standard, and the hazard attending possible change, they would be likely to do in a greater proportion than that in which the currency is degraded; so that every man in the country who depends upon a fixed income, would find himself doubly straitened-by the diminution of his resources on the one hand, and by the disproportionate increase in the cost of all the necessaries of life on the other.

In conclusion, the Committee would only add, that the existence of a double standard in coinage, at any time and anywhere, has been a consequence of a provision of nature quite accidental, according to which two metals, and only two, possess the properties which fit them, or have heretofore fitted them, both to be standards of value. Had there been three or four or five metals possessing equally the same properties, there would, beyond question, have been a triple, a quadruple or a quintuple standard. But, in the state of things which would have existed on such a supposi

tion, the evils consequent on employing more standards than one would, unquestionably, have been recognized at a much earlier period in the history of the human race than they have been in fact, and the nineteenth century would not have been vexed with the questions on this subject which keep the thinking men of our country in a state of so constant anxiety to-day.

With these remarks the undersigned respectfully submit the preamble and resolution appended to this report, and ask for them the favorable consideration of the Association.

F. A. P. BARNARD, Chairman,

JOSEPH HENRY,

J. E. HILGARD,

WILLIAM B. ROGERS,

E. B. ELLIOTT,

H. A. NEWTON,

J. LAWRENCE SMITH,

Committee.

PREAMBLE AND RESOLUTION.

Whereas, gold and silver, like other gifts of nature or products of human industry, are subject to gradual changes of value; and no relation of values which may be by law established between them can permanently conform to the actual relation existing in the markets of the world; and

Whereas, coins of these two metals cannot for any length of time be maintained in circulation side by side, when the coinage of both is equally free from limitation, and both are made legal tender in payment for all amounts; and

Whereas, it is historically true that legislation, in the endeavor to restore the disturbed equilibrium between the standard metals, has tended invariably to depress the grade of the coinage in one or the other and ultimately in both; and

Whereas, it is the aim of enlightened governments everywhere at the present day, whether by the absolute abolition of the double standard or not, to make gold for all practical purposes the single standard, and to employ silver chiefly or wholly as the material of a subsidiary coinage, legal tender only to limited amounts; and

Whereas, the United States after an experience of nearly a century in the effort to maintain a double standard, during the earlier portion of which, under the operation of the inexorable laws governing exchanges, gold was completely banished from circulation, while during the later, silver of legal tender grade has shared the same fate; and after the complete disappearance of the silver dollar from business transactions for more than forty years, have at length, by an act of deliberate and wise legislation, extricated the country from this long standing evil and adopted gold as the sole standard of value in their monetary system;

Therefore

Resolved, as the sense of this Association, that the single standard of value in our system of coinage, now fully established by law, ought to be maintained, and that every proposition to restore to silver the legal tender character for payments to all amounts ought to be discouraged.

On motion the report was received and referred to the Standing Committee.

Prof. Barnard moved that the title of his committee be changed to read "Permanent Committee on Weights, Measures and Coinage." Carried.