thirteen years following the California discovery the stock of gold in the
world was doubled, and in the twenty-five years ending with 1873 it was
more than tripled. Several economic writers have made the statement very
much stronger than this, and M. Chevalier, in his famous argument for the
demonetization of gold, written in 1857, declares that the production of
gold as compared with silver had increased fivefold in six years and
fifteenfold in forty years, and that, owing to the export of silver to
Asia and its use in the arts, there would, in a very little while, be no
possible method of maintaining the parity of the two metals in money at
any ratio which would be honest and profitable.

And what was the real fact? The ratio, which in 1849 was 15-78/100 of
silver to 1 of gold in the London market, and the same in 1850, never sank
below 15-19/100 to 1, and never rose above the ratio of 1849 till after
silver was demonetized. Why this wonderful steadiness? The answer is easy.
In the eight years of 1853-60 France imported gold to the value of
3,082,000,000 f., or $616,000,000, and exported silver to the value of
$293,000,000; in short, her bullion operations amounted to $909,000,000.
She stood it without a quiver; she grew and prospered as never before. She
resolutely refused to change her ratio. Her mints stood open to all the
gold and silver of the world, and thus did she save the world from a great
calamity.

Scarcely, however, had the golden flood begun when the moneyed classes and
those with fixed incomes raised a loud cry. From the laboring producers no
complaint was heard. They never complain of increased coinage. In the
United States we knew nothing of this clamor, for we then had no large
creditor class, no great amount of bonds, and very few people interested
more in the value of money than in the rewards of labor. In Europe,
however, all the leading writers on finance and industries took part. In