throughout the civilised world from time immemorial to the year 1873. All the enormous national debts now existing have been borrowed under that double standard; and for the Governments of the world to legislate in such a manner as to establish a gold standard instead of that double standard constitutes the most gigantic injustice towards the labouring classes, who are burdened with those debts, that has ever been recorded throughout the history of the world. And, taking a merely English view of the case, if Parliament, in 1816, had a right to decree the legal establishment of the gold standard just after our immense debt of 850,000,000l. had been borrowed under the legal establishment of the double standard, then a future Parliament, returned by the debtors, who number ten or twenty to one as compared with the creditors, will have an equal right to decree a legal establishment of a silver, a copper, or a paper standard, and thus make our debt of little value to the holders. For if Parliament has a right to change the standard in such a manner as to increase the value of the debt 20 per cent., then it also has a right to change the standard in such a manner as to decrease the value 20 per cent.; and if 20 per cent., then also 40 per cent., 80 per cent., or totally.

The only honourable excuse for the legislation inaugurated by England in 1816, and since followed by Germany and the United States, is to be found in the fact that political economists did not understand what the standard of value really was, as I have pointed out in the chapter on Lord Liverpool's oversight.

A remarkable feature of the case, which is not generally known, is the fact that, though it is by a decree of Parliament that the mint is at present restricted to the coinage of gold for unlimited legal tender, Parliament has not really any constitutional right to legislate on the subject, for the mint is constitutionally under the control of the Crown. It was for this, and other reasons mentioned in the following letter, I desired to dedicate the second edition of this book to the Heir Apparent to the Crown; and though established etiquette

prevented the acceptance of that dedication, I now publish the letter, as it explains the constitutional aspect of the question.

ΤΟ

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS ALBERT EDWARD,

PRINCE OF WALES.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS,–

In the following pages I have pointed out that a letter addressed to King George III. by the first Earl of Liverpool was the prevailing influence which induced Parliament to abolish the Silver Standard, and to make the gold sovereign the sole representative of the Pound Sterling.

The Noble Earl, in the preamble of his letter, addresses the following words to His Gracious Majesty:

'It is a part of Your Royal Functions to attend to the state of the Coins of Your Realm, and to cause every defect to be ' removed, which mistaken policy has introduced, or the waste of 'time may have wrought in them. It is also, I well know, Your 'Majesty's earnest wish and inclination, on this and on every other 'occasion, to consult the convenience, and provide for the interests 'of Your People. For these reasons I have thought it my duty 'to address to Your Majesty a treatise, which has for its object to ' explain and elucidate the true principles of Coinage; to point ' out the errors committed in this respect under the authority of 'Your Royal Predecessors, and to suggest the best methods of pre' venting such evils for the future.'

6

As what I will rather call an oversight than a mistake, made by the Earl of Liverpool in the reasons given for recommending the abolition of the Silver Standard, has not only begun to produce very pernicious effects throughout Her Majesty's Empire, and, to a lesser extent, throughout the civilised world, but has also become a source of injustice towards the great majority of Her Majesty's subjects, to the benefit of a few wealthy families; and as I am sure that Your Royal Highness is no less interested than

was His late Majesty King George III., in all that affects the welfare of the Empire and of mankind, I respectfully dedicate these pages to Your Royal Highness, in the hope of calling your attention to the oversight to which I have alluded, in the firm conviction that your perception of it will lead to the adoption of such measures as will effectually counteract its present evil effects and its prospective dangers. The nature of the subject will, I trust, sufficiently explain my preferring to address Your Royal Highness regarding it rather than Her Gracious Majesty, to whom it would otherwise be fitting that a reply to a letter addressed to one of Her Royal Predecessors should be dedicated. Notwithstanding her well-known wish and inclination to consult the convenience and provide for the interests of Her People, Her Majesty could not be expected to give the question that personal attention which I make bold to request from Your Royal Highness.

It is not merely because Parliament seems to have been led astray by Lord Liverpool on this question that I have made bold to dedicate to your Royal Highness the following arguments, nor do I now address them to Your Royal Highness with a view of inducing Her Majesty, by the mere exercise of Her Royal Prerogative, to reopen the Mint for the unlimited coinage of silver without the previous consent of Parliament; but, as the Constitution confers this power on the reigning Sovereign, who can constitutionally control the question without the intervention of Parliament, and has thus a special interest and responsibility in the due administration of justice, as various interests of Her Majesty's subjects are affected by the character of the coins issued by the Mint, it appears the most natural and reasonable course of procedure to address Your Royal Highness, in the hope that your appreciation of the question may lead to such an exercise of your own constitutional influence, as may hasten the Parliamentary legislation which the situation requires, without attempting to induce Her Majesty to have recourse to the exercise of Her Royal Prerogative; for I cannot doubt that Your Royal Highness would be among the last to advise Her Majesty to disregard the advice addressed by the Earl of Liverpool to King George III., to the effect that, though this great prerogative is unquestionable,

it is certainly advisable that in the exercise of it the King should avail himself of the wisdom and support of His Parliament, when, as at present, it must be assumed that a full discussion of the question must lead Parliament to acknowledge and to recommend a remedy for the injustice which has unwittingly been inflicted by a preceding Parliament.

I am convinced that the influence of the enhancement of the standard of value, in contributing to the fall of the Roman Empire, by making the rich more rich and the poor more poor, thus leading to reckless extravagance on the one hand and to the recklessness of despair on the other, has never hitherto been fully appreciated; and that the evil effects of the recent enhancement of the standard, together with the greater evils that may yet arise from it, have not been overestimated by Ernest Seyd, Cernuschi, Wolowski, or Laveleye.

That Her Majesty's councils may in this, as in all matters, be guided with such sound wisdom and discretion as may lead to a long continuance of the Form of Government under which it is the privilege of Her Majesty's Subjects to live, is the earnest desire of Your Royal Highness's

Obedient Servant,

WM. LEIGHTON JORDAN.

BUENOS AYRES:
July 18, 1882.

II.

Together with Lord Sherbrooke, Mr. Arthur Crump is among the most determined opponents of the double standard. And, like Lord Sherbrooke, whose misunderstanding of the question I have pointed out as being similar to Lord Liverpool's, Mr. Crump expends a considerable amount of uncomplimentary denunciation on ideas which he imagines to be entertained by bimetallists, but which are really creations of his own or of Lord Sherbrooke's fancy. It is on this account that Mr. Crump is able conscientiously to attempt to taunt bimetallists

by asking, 'How is it that the bimetallic system has not 'enabled the bimetallic countries to absorb the silver that is now in superfluous supply?'1

Mr. Crump's misconception of the subject makes him blind to the fact that, in consequence of the example set by England in 1816, the bimetallic system ceased to exist in 1873; and that bimetallists are advocating a restoration of that system merely because if restored it would cause the existing supplies of silver to be beneficially absorbed at their former value.

Suppose a law were passed compelling the factories to limit themselves to the manufacture of woollen and linen articles, to the exclusion of cotton. The Liverpool merchants would find their market glutted with a 'superfluous supply' of cotton, and if they were then to inaugurate agitation for the purpose of inducing the Government to rescind the obnoxious law, on the plea that if the factories were again allowed to manufacture cotton articles the otherwise superfluous supply would quickly and usefully be absorbed in a manner beneficial to the community in general, though to a certain extent disastrous to the holders of wool and linen, who had been unfairly advantaged by the enactment of the law, then those advocates of the right to manufacture cotton would hold the same position in the market for articles of clothing as that which is now held by bimetallists in the money market; and if an Anti-Cotton Crump were to taunt those advocates of fair play for cotton by arguing that the low price of the article showed that nobody wanted their 'super'fluous supply,' I should say that he had either rashly rushed into the discussion of the question without having acquainted himself with the antecedents which had given it a raison d'être, or else that he was a partisan of the holders of wool or linen, endeavouring to throw dust into the eyes of the public for the purpose of preventing them from perceiving that the closing of the factories against cotton enhanced the cost of all articles of clothing, and made even woollen blankets more scarce and

A Review of the Position and Prophecies of the Bimetallists, by Arthur Crump, p. 55. Effingham Wilson, London, 1882.