Of the points made in their report, I mention these. They said: "The supply of gold is diminishing, being now but little more than one half what it was in 1852, and is always so fitful and irregular from the method of its production that it is ill-suited to be a sole measure of value."
This statement as a statement of an existing fact was wide of the truth, and as a prophecy it was as fallacious as are the prophecies which predict the destruction of the world. From 1851 to 1855 the annual gold product of the world was 6,410,324 ounces. From 1876 to 1880 the annual gold product of the world was 5,543,110 ounces. The gold product of the latter period was eighty-six per cent of the gold product of the former period.
Far wide of the truth were the predictions of the majority in regard to the future product of gold. For the year 1894 the product was 8,737,788 ounces, or about thirty-seven per cent over the product of 1851-'55.
They, the majority, said: "No increase in the yield of silver in the immediate future seems upon the whole to be probable." The commission said further: "The exchanges of the world, and especially of this country, are continually and largely increasing; while the supplies of both the precious metals, taken together, if not diminishing, are at least stationary, and the supply of gold, taken by itself, is falling off."
Each of these two statements in regard to the precious metals was a serious error, and in their controlling influence upon the judgment of the commission they were fatal errors.
The gold product of the world in 1876 was 5,016,488 ounces. In 1894 the product had risen to 8,737,788 ounces, a gain of more than seventy-four per cent in the short period of eighteen years.
In 1876 the product of silver was 67,753,125 ounces, and in 1894 it was 167,752,561 ounces, a gain of about 147 per cent in eighteen years.
Upon these errors the majority of the commission based a policy by which the only opportunity that the country ever had for the establishment of a bimetallic system which should include the commercial nations of Europe, was put aside and forever lost.
If, in 1876, I had anticipated the immense increase in the product of silver, I might have hesitated, but in the view that I was then able to command I had great confidence that a bimetallic arrangement might be secured.
The majority of the commission favored bimetallism but they demanded, first, the remonetization of the silver dollar. On the other hand, I claimed that all thought of the further use of silver should be postponed until the attempt to secure the co-operation of other countries had been tried faithfully.