Unless, then, we possess a very robust faith in the immobility of human affairs, we must regard the fall in the value of gold as an event for which we should prepare without loss of time.
The "preparation" which Chevalier advocated was the discarding of that metal which gave promise of the greatest abundance. He did not attempt to hide his purpose. He boldly stated that his object was to enhance the value of money. This object was also clearly expressed on a later occasion by another distinguished advocate of dear money, Mr. Victor Bonnet, of France, in the Journal des Economistes. He said:
The world is now saturated with the precious metals, and if there is any danger against which it is necessary to guard, it is that this saturation should become greater. * * *
If the annual production of gold is now reduced to 500,000,000 francs, let us thank Heaven for it, and let us wish that it may not be too rapidly increased, whereby we should be embarrassed. It is the too great abundance and not the scarcity of metallic money which is to be apprehended.
GOLD DEMONETIZED.
In 1857 the German states and Austria demonetized gold; and had it not been for the opposition of France, which insisted on retaining the double standard, the movement might have become general on the continent. With England, however, nothing could be done. More than a generation had passed since it had declared for the single standard of gold, and its creditors and income classes—the shrewdest, most adept, and watchful of financiers—did not believe that the large yields of gold would long continue.
The creditor classes of the continent, finding England immovable and realizing that the object sought by the English creditors was identical with their own, namely, the increase in the value of money and the depression of prices, concluded that the common purpose could be as well served by the demonetization of one as by that of the other. This conclusion was emphasized by developments on the Comstock lode whose bountiful and beneficent yield of silver was the fitting supplement to the great discoveries of gold on the Pacific coast. The danger of a decline in the value of money was more imminent than ever. The annuitants became alarmed. Commissions were sent from Europe to the Pacific coast to investigate the subject. The United States, too, sent a commissioner to examine into the condition and prospects of the Comstock, and, imbued with many of the characteristics of De Quincey and Chevalier, the United States commissioner, in 1868, reported that if all other mines were worked with the machinery used on the Comstock "their yield would flood the world."
Like many of the present opponents of silver he was endowed with the gift of prophecy, and accordingly we find him confidently predicting that other and innumerable rich lodes of silver would be found on the Pacific coast which would be worked with great profit. The attack on gold was immediately changed to a combined attack on silver. From that period till the present no means have been left untried to belittle and degrade that metal, and also to disparage those who are in favor of continuing it as one of the money metals of the world.
It was then announced with all the dogmatism of authority that silver was unfit to be used as money. Defects were suddenly discovered in it that the scrutiny of three thousand years had failed to disclose. Its weight and bulk were found to be insuperable obstacles to its use as money. Yet the specific gravity of silver is no greater now than it has been for all the ages during which it has been used as money by all mankind, nor is it any heavier or more bulky than it was in 1851 or 1857, when Belgium, Germany, and Austria demonetized gold and made the "heavy," "bulky," and "inconvenient" metal, silver, their only money metal. Silver can now be transported from place to place with less risk and at no greater expense than gold, and at much less cost than at any previous period in the history of the world.
The objection that silver is too heavy for the pocket is an objection common to all metallic money. We see hardly any gold in circulation in this country—infinitely less than of silver. When our people have a choice as to the form in which they will take money they prefer paper representatives as being the most convenient. The extraordinary perfection to which the arts of the engraver and paper maker have been brought gives paper money a security against counterfeiting and imitation far superior to any immunity which can be claimed for the metals. The marvellous inventions of modern times in the form of safes and vault-locks render it a matter of practically no risk to store the metals, both silver and gold, so that paper representatives of them may be issued. These representatives are preferred by the general mass of the people, and have almost entirely occupied the channels of circulation to the exclusion of both metals. A silver certificate for $1,000 weighs no more than a gold certificate for the same amount.