special importance is that the metals can be
concurrently used. The oscillation from one to the other, even if it be
admitted that it would provide us always with the better of them under
whatever changes may occur, is certainly not to be preferred to the
constant and equal use of both. The unlimited coinage of the two metals
upon a plan so equitable, recognizing as it does their precise market
relations from day to day, would enable us to view with indifference the
fluctuations of the market, however great, and to whatever cause due.
Incidental to this advantage, and second only to it in importance, would
be the establishment of a par of exchange simultaneously with the
gold-and with the silver-using countries by allowing customs duties to
be paid in silver bullion at market prices, or in gold.

It may be contended that under the plan here proposed the government
might lose by a continued decline in silver, and that the silver it
already has would remain depreciated far below the price the government
paid for it. I frankly admit this. But is it reasonable to suppose that
silver will continue to decline? The probabilities are that in the
succeeding twenty years the production of gold will increase more
rapidly in proportion than silver; and it also seems that whereas
processes for extracting and refining silver have well-nigh reached
their limit of economy, the new processes for treating gold are rapidly
improving. Nor must it be forgotten that should such a decline occur the
mint deposits are from day to day keeping pace with the withdrawals, the
losses on the latter thus being counterbalanced by concurrent gains, and
interest-bearing debts being constantly transmuted into non-interest
bearing currency. It is equally clear that the utilization of a dead
asset, as the government stock of silver now is, is a distinct gain, and
will permanently dispense with the future issue of bonds for the
repletion of the gold reserve. As for the silver purchased by the
government under the Acts of 1878 and 1890 having become depreciated,
the fact is there whether we choose to recognize or ignore it. There is
no better way for palliating that loss than to make that silver
immediately available for the payment of the nation's debts.

Allied to the question of the costliness of the system is that of its
tendency toward, or freedom from, speculative disturbances. So long as
payment solely in gold was compulsory, speculators had a fertile