the community. It is called hard, but it is wise, and it serves the general interest."

In support of these views, Mr. Goschen shows how much of the opposition to economics has been due to the efforts of the economists in restricting poor-relief; yet this restriction has proved a brilliant success, while the legislation of those who looked at feelings instead of consequences simply bred vice and demoralization. He is far from upholding an absolute laissez-faire policy; but he holds that whatever is done must be done under the strictest economic study of consequences; and that many of the appeals to ethics and to sentiment, even when made on the basis of obvious facts or feelings, are but pleas for the disregard of other facts and feelings, less obvious but more far-reaching in their effects.

The Silver Convention, which has recently closed its sessions in Chicago, protests in the first article of its resolutions, "against the financial policy of the United States being made dependent upon the opinion or policies of any foreign government." This is a particularly unfortunate time for such utterance. We may, if we will, shut our eyes to what the rest of the world is doing. But we cannot prevent the rest of the world from seeing what we are doing, nor can we prevent our trade from feeling the effects of changes in the currency of other countries. The Indian government, in suspending the free coinage of silver, was undoubtedly influenced by the possibility of the repeal of the Sherman Act. The suspension of free coinage in India reacted on the silver market, and aggravated the crisis which had already begun here. When our whole commercial world is feeling so keenly the effects of a law made on the other side of the globe, it would seem wise to find out all we can about the whys and the wherefores of that law, rather than to pretend to ignore it.

But when we come to Resolution 2, which demands the free coinage of silver on the basis of 16 to 1, we can readily see that the Indian example would be unpopular in the convention. For India has had free coinage of silver and has suspended it, and we cannot avoid asking, why so conserva

tive a country has suddenly broken with its traditions. The answer which the Indian Currency Committee gives amounts to this. Every fall in the price of silver entails a heavy loss in exchange on some £16,000,000 that the Indian government has to remit each year to England. The repeal of the Sherman Law would probably produce a fall in silver and a deficit in the Indian balance-sheet. It would not be possible to wipe this out, either by economies in expenditure or by an increase in taxation. The government should therefore prevent any further fall by limiting the coinage of silver, and thus giving a scarcity value to the rupee. Whether this step is a wise one or not, does not concern us here. The important point to remember is that the free coinage of a depreciating metal makes it more and more difficult for the government to pay its way.

Now the United States are not India, and we can endure a strain which would wreck a poor country. Yet there are some points of contact between the two which are worth noting. The vice of the Sherman Act is, not that it creates a cheap, inflated currency in the ordinary sense of the word. Its vice is that it involves bad financiering. Most governments that have issued a token currency have done so, because it cost them little. But our treasury notes cost the government more than it gets in return for them. They cost it the obligation to redeem them in gold, and it gets a commodity which it cannot use, and which it cannot sell, except at a loss. Our treasury is, we believe, the first in the history of the world which deliberately exchanges good money for bad money. Thus our treasury notes, instead of being used to tide over a deficit, like the greenbacks during the war, have helped to create a deficit. The Sherman Law, in other words, is but a part of a system of extravagance, of which our sugar bounties and our pension rolls are equally flagrant examples; a system which looks at the interests that are to be benefited by government expenditure and forgets the tax-payer; a system which has converted the surplus of a few years ago into a deficit amounting during the fiscal year just passed to nearly $4,800,000.

Now free coinage of silver would do away with the silver purchases, and to that extent relieve the treasury. But the

interest on the debt would have to be paid in gold, and if general prices went up as the silver men expect, many other expenses of the government would increase. The receipts, however, of which a very large proportion come from specific taxes, would not increase in proportion. We should thus be obliged, either to raise our taxes, or to cut down our expenses. And this is the very dilemma, both horns of which the Indian government has tried to evade by abandoning free coinage.

But the members of the Convention not only pride themselves on ignoring foreign experience; they have apparently learned nothing from our own. The one merit of the Sherman Law is that it has demonstrated, as nothing else could, the impossibility of raising the price of an article whose cost of production is falling, by buying large quantities of it and storing it. And this experience virtually undermines the whole bi-metallic theory. This Sherman Act lesson has cost us thus far some $150,000,000, but that is less than $2.50 per capita, and if the lesson were well learned, it would be cheap. The silver men of the Convention have apparently paid their share of the tuition fee without profiting by the instruction.

We cannot, however, believe that they represent the majority of the American people. There is a certain picturesque anthropomorphism in their mode of handling financial questions, quite at variance with the homely, hard-headed way in which most Americans discuss their interests. Thus they speak of gold and silver as coming "down through the ages hand in hand." Wheat and other agricultural products have, we are told, "ridden side by side with silver." Now farmers who ship their wheat by rail, do not speak of it as riding to New York or Liverpool. Nor does a mechanic who pays $1.10 for a tool, remark: "the dollar and the dime are walking out of my pocket hand in hand." Conceptions so different from the notions of every day life can hardly represent the views of a majority of American citizens.

It seems, therefore, probable that the effect of these resolutions, with their encyclopedic preamble, will be to help, rather than hinder, the unconditional repeal of the silverpurchasing provisions of the Sherman Act.

MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF CHARLES SUMNER.'

HOWEVER diverse may be the estimates of the intel

lectual and moral traits and the public services of Charles Sumner, there will be but one opinion respecting the ability, the diligence and the conscientiousness of his biographer. Mr. Pierce's talents and training, and the keen interest which he has always taken in political affairs, qualify him admirably for the task which he has undertaken. The work involves really a history of the country, on the political side, during the long and eventful period which is covered by the Memoir. In this period are embraced the struggle with the Slave Power prior to the breaking out of the armed conflict, the years of the Civil War, and the era that immediately followed, down to 1874, the year of Mr. Sumner's death. There was required a careful examination of a vast correspondence, to which was superadded a studious perusal of countless documents and contemporary newspapers without number, together with a minute inquiry into the parts that were played on the stage of political action by the public men of the day. It is no small merit of this work that we are supplied with marginal references, particular and accurate, to the authorities, including the daily journals, which verify or illustrate the narrative. Mr. Pierce had a long and intimate acquaintance with Mr. Sumner. He writes as one might properly be expected to write respecting a friend. He regards with high esteem his abilities and his principles. A biography written in a less sympathetic spirit would be far less valuable. Yet Mr. Pierce is blinded by no enthusiasm of hero-worship. He is no

mere Boswell to record with idolatrous interest whatever fell from the lips of the oracle. His approval is by no means indiscriminate. Readers may find themselves differing from his judgments, which are pronounced frankly and fearlessly,

iv.

1 Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, by Edward L. Pierce. Vols. iii. and Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1893. 621 and 658. pp.

concerning the distinguished men with whom Mr. Sumner came in contact and not seldom in conflict. They may find less to sanction and more to regret than does Mr. Pierce in the words and doings of the subject of the Memoir. Yet the biographer does not omit to unveil the characteristic defects in Mr. Sumner's character and to touch on the infelicities that pertain to his style as a writer and an orator.

Since these defects and faults impress themselves strongly upon us, in common with many others who look upon our recent history, and contemplate the conspicuous actors who have lately passed away, it is the more obligatory, as it is certainly agreeable, to refer at the outset to Mr. Sumner's high and undeniable merits. It is beyond all question that he was absolutely sincere in his convictions. There is no

doubt that he was always actuated by an intense and even passionate love of justice. Nor has he ever been accused of any lack of courage. He was intrepid in word and in conduct. That a career of philanthropy and self-sacrifice was the ideal that inspired him from his early days is made obvious through his spontaneous utterances, for example, his private letters to his brother, as well as from the whole tenor of his life. Having said all this, it may be allowed us to set down some things on the other side of the account. A marked weakness of Mr. Sumner was his vanity. "The reader," writes Mr. Pierce (p. 70), "has gone far enough in this narrative to observe that he (Mr. Sumner) delighted to talk of the noted persons he had met, of the attentions he had received, and the good things said of him. When after his triumphs as an orator applause poured in on him, it delighted his ears; and he could not refrain from communicating it to others, not always his intimate friends. pleased him to know the effect of his orations, and to let others know it also. This habit, which developed when he took the platform in Boston, remained with him to the end." Mr. Sumner was an uncommonly fine-looking man, and he never seemed to be unconscious of it. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that he seemed to be full of himself. As a speaker, he seldom if ever was so far borne away by his theme and by the force of his emotions as to be oblivious of

It