by which inroads upon our product might be made. If, however, the balance of trade should be against us, the depletion of our stock of gold would go on with great rapidity. As gold is now a part of our currency, and the better part of our currency, we ought to retain as large an amount as possible in our hands; and as silver is the less valuable of the two metals, we should do whatever is in our power to extend its use in other countries. As the coinage of any considerable additional quantity of silver is a useless expense, it seems wiser to continue the purchase of silver bullion, the product of the United States, upon the present basis substantially. The silver dollar of the mint is a depreciated dollar when compared with the gold dollar, which is the standard in international transactions; and it seems unwise to transfer to the general public the power to issue these dollars with such limit only as may be fixed by the uncertain product of the mines. Possibly the country would be subjected to troubles and losses of no inconsiderable magnitude, in case the production of silver should increase, and the gold countries should be able to adhere to the single standard. In any view of the case, the evils of a depreciated standard of values must fall upon all classes, and that fact may with justice sustain the position that the profits of coinage should inure to the country rather than to a class.

The refusal of the states of Europe to co-operate with the United States in the use of both metals upon an agreed ratio of value, may produce disasters in all the countries, but it is not improbable that the consequences will be more serious in England and in Germany than in the United States. In the United States the volume of currency will be increasing constantly, and with the additions to the volume there will be an enlargement of business and an increase of activity in business pursuits. This condition of affairs, so prosperous apparently, will be followed by a panic due to some untoward event in business, by a general loss of confidence, by a hoarding of means by the creditor class, and by distress and bankruptcy in the debtor class.

Neither the statistics of a single country, nor a comparison of the statistics of many countries, furnishes a guide to a safe opinion as to the volume of currency which a given number of peo

ple can wisely and profitably use at any given period of time. Omitting all reference to possible ultimate consequences, it may be assumed of a nation in which the volume of currency is increasing that there will be activity in business and an aspect of general prosperity. On the other hand, there will be depression, discontent, and finally bankruptcy, more or less universal, in a country in which, through a continuing series of years, the volume of currency decreases in proportion to population and to the demands of business.

The present yield of gold, after deducting the bullion required in the arts, cannot furnish more than $80,000,000 a year to the gold coinage of the world, and of this amount not more than $40,000,000 can be appropriated by Great Britain and Germany. This slight addition may not keep pace with the demands of business and of an increasing population, and thus those countries may be subjected to a constant financial pressure which will compel them to accept the bimetallic system and thereby bring to a close a controversy and a rivalry which are fraught with peril to the industries and business of both continents.

GEORGE S. BOUTWELL.

DO WE HATE ENGLAND?

LET us thank God that the art of war is tending to suicide. Its cost has become a sting in the tail, which menaces head and front. A hundred years ago, when a war could be carried on for years at the expense of less life and treasure than must now be wasted in a single campaign, Edmund Burke impeached what he called "wars of calculation," as worse than absurdities, even apart from moral considerations. "On balancing the account of such wars, ten thousand hogsheads of sugar are purchased at ten thousand times their price." This is just as true of fish quintals and seal skins. He continues:

"Speculative plunder, contingent spoil-these will never support a mercenary war. The blood of man should never be shed but to redeem the blood of man. It is well shed for our family, for our friends, for our God, for our country, for our kind. The rest is vanity, the rest is crime." Compare these noble utterances with the flippancy of our journalism, and with our political bravado about Alaska and Newfoundland. Have we learned nothing from the terrible destructiveness of our civil war, its awful bloodshed, its intolerable bounties and taxation, entailing upon another generation the enormity of the pension bill? Other great powers, and those the most warlike, are fulfilling the prophecy, in part, that "nations shall learn war no more." Doubtless the partition of Africa has been undertaken in a mercenary spirit, and makes possible future wars of calculation"; but, for the moment, the high competing parties have paused at the threshold of such a future, and, deliberately counting the cost, have given a lesson to the world. Of this gigantic scramble for a continent and its pacific adjustment, M. de Laveleye says*:

"The way in which the European states have divided Africa between them is not less worthy of attention than the facts we have already noticed.... Diplomatists have taken the place of generals and admirals, and the pen has been substituted for the sword."

* The FORUM, January, 1891, p. 489.

One breathes more freely as he reads this. But is Othello's occupation gone? Is diplomacy equal to other crises of the times? Is there sanity enough in cabinets and congresses to repress the madness of politicians; to confront the strain and the commercial rivalries of the epoch, of this universal greed for booty and clutch for territory? Can the pen, with nothing but law and common sense flowing from its point, prevent the profligate waste of human life and blood, and reduce armies and navies to the insignificant scale of a police, armed only against piracy on the seas and anarchy on shore?

For four hundred years diplomacy has preferred to fan the sparks of war into conflagration, rather than to extinguish them. From the times of Machiavelli to those of Talleyrand, diplomatists have been excused from keeping a conscience, under the maxims of the great Florentine, which have been accepted in civil matters as well as in war affairs. But what was philosophy in him has come down to the grosser instincts of the masses in our day, in their practical proverb, "All is fair in politics." In our own Republic the purification of politics has been derided as an "iridescent dream," which is the same thing as to pronounce the putrefaction of public morals an immedicable ulcer. Nor can England afford to cry shame on us. In her Parliament, side by side with those who still uphold its ennobling traditions, sits a class of men not a whit superior to those who have brutalized and subjugated the municipality of New York. I have seen lawgivers who write "M.P." after their names scuffling with the police and howling with the rabble in Trafalgar Square. While we must take account of such elements as these in forming our hopes for the future of England and America, we may yet indulge the trust, I humbly conceive, that what has prevailed with the governments of Europe so practically for the peaceful solution of African problems, may prove not less practical with us. It may be a good thing for the future, that just now a veil is lifted from the secret history of the past by the appearance of the private memoirs of M. Talleyrand-that Proteus of diplomacy, that enigma of his own day, and that lesson of warning to our own. Perhaps to him, more than to any other civilian, we owe the outcome of an epoch that ex

tinguished the Bourbons and brought down to the dust the anomalous fabric that had stood for a thousand years under the fictitious label of "The Holy Roman Empire." So perish other fictions that invite alike the anathema of Daniel the prophet, and the scorn of the cynical Byron:

"Those pagod things of sabre sway,

With fronts of brass and feet of clay." The confessions of Talleyrand may teach the publicists of our day to discard forever the Machiavellianism of which his melancholy career is an unparalleled example. Then, indeed, the pen of a great secretary may spike a Kaiser's cannon, and outweigh the sword of Brennus. But this cannot be until quibbling and chicanery shall be held as contemptible in the protocols of cabinet ministers as in the pleadings of "Quirk, Gammon, and Snap," and other pettifoggers of the Old Bailey.

Why should all that discredits a dealer in the traffic of the market be considered creditable in the sharp practice of a diplomatist? It is refreshing to be told, in response to such inquiries, that diplomacy is purifying itself, as it were. In the recent division of spoils between those great powers which have partitioned Africa from the Cameroons to Zanzibar, we are reminded of the proverb that honor exists among thieves. Says M. de Laveleye:

"Germany was . . . clearly encroaching in a very decided manner on territory apparently reserved to England. But the question arose whether it was worth while to quarrel over a few strips of land in the dark continent, and whether the friendship of the great military power was not well worth some small sacrifices on the part of the English government. After prolonged discussion an understanding was arrived at, which took the form of a mere exchange of letters, not of a treaty."

Note this memorable information-that even treaties are as needless as red tape, if only diplomatic correspondence may be reduced to the fair dealing which binds honorable men in what they write and sign with their hands. "This is now the formula," continues M. de Laveleye, "employed for arrangements of this description"; and most important is his intimation, that thus "new principles of international law" have been introduced into the diplomacy of Europe. "Hail, holy light!"

What followed? England hauled down the meteor flag,