A Little Mixed.
Second W. I. M. What! you don't know what the Bland Bill was? Don't you remember it? It provided that a certain amount of silver was to be coined every year, and the Treasury was to hold the surplus until it reached a certain value, and then,—but every schoolboy knows what happened.
Average Man. What did happen, as a matter of fact?
Second W. I. M. (scornfully). Why, the market was flooded.
First W. I. M. Yes, and that exactly proves my point. Make fifteen the ratio between gold and silver, and you'll never have the market flooded again.
Second W. I. M. (hotly). How do you make that out?
First W. I. M. It's as plain as a pikestaff. Make silver your legal tender for large amounts in this country, and you stop all these United States games at one blow.
Second W. I. M. Fiddlesticks! I suppose you'll want us to believe next that if we become bi-metallists, corn and everything else will go up in value?
First W. I. M. Of course it will. We've only got to get Germany and France, and the rest of them to come in, and the thing's as good as done. What I say is, adopt bi-metallism, and you relieve trade and agriculture, and everything else.
A. M. Do you mean we shall have to pay more for everything?
First W. I. M. No, of course not; I mean that the appreciation of gold is a calamity which we've got to get rid of.
A. M. I don't see it. If my sovereign buys more than it did years ago, that seems to be a bit of a catch for me, don't it?
First W. I. M. Ah, I daresay you think so, but you're wrong. If you fix a ratio, things may be dearer, but you'll have twice as much purchasing power.
Inquirer (anxiously). How do you fix a ratio?
Second W. I. M. Ah, that's the question!
First W. I. M. That's not my business. I say it ought to be fixed, and it's for the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Bank of England to do it.
Second W. I. M. (decisively). The Bank can't do it. Its Charter won't allow it.
Inquirer. How's that? I never quite understood the Charter.
Second W. I. M. By the Charter the Bank has to——
[But at this moment, the train having drawn up at a station, an intruder gets into the carriage. He is severely frowned upon, and the conversation, thus checked, is not resumed.
Inquirer (getting out at terminus, to First W. I. M.). I think I've got a pretty clear notion of Bi-metallism now, thanks to you.
First W. I. M. (modestly). Oh, it's quite simple, if you only take the trouble to give your mind to it.
OUR "MISSING WORD COMPETITION."
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