e Navy!(4) It expended scarcely three millions to aid in
building up its mercantile marine, and expended much of that unwisely.

[(1) The Louisiana Commission was composed as follows:

General Joseph R. Hawley of Connecticut, Judge Charles B. Lawrence of
Ohio, General John M. Harlan of Kentucky, Ex-Governor John C. Brown of
Tennessee, Hon. Wayne McVeagh of Pennsylvania.]

[(2) The International Monetary Conference for which provision was made
in the bill was held at Paris in the autumn of 1878. The American
Commissioners were Reuben K. Fenton, William S. Groesbeck, and Francis
A. Walker, with S. Dana Horton as Secretary. The principal European
Nations were present with the exception of Germany. The Commissioners
receive the impression that decided progress had been made towards the
remonetization of silver in Europe, but subsequent event have not
vindicated their judgment. Mr. Goschen, who was the head of the
British delegation, declared that "it would be a misfortune for the
world if a movement for a sole gold standard should succeed;" but he
indicated no purpose on the part of his own government to change from
the gold standard. The Conference came to no practical conclusion,
simply agreeing that "it is necessary to maintain in the world the
monetary functions of silver as well as those of gold;" but that "the
selection for use of one or the other of the two metals, or both
simultaneously, should be governed by the special position of each
State or group of States." The proposition of the United States "that
the delegations recommend to their respective governments the
adjustment of a fixed relation between the two metals and the use of
both in that relation as unlimited legal-tender money," was rejected.
The supporters of a bi-metallic standard, though disappointed in the
immediate result of the Conference, received encouragement from the
advance in International opinion in the years that had elapsed since
the previous Conference (1867). At that time the Nations declared
almost unanimously in favor of a single standard of gold. Many of
them had found in the interval great difficulty in maintaining it and
were withheld from declaring for the double standard simply by the
influence and example of England.]

[(3) The following tables have been prepared with care by Hon. A. Loudon
Snowden, the able superintendent for several years of the United States
Mint at Philadelphia.

ANNUAL PRODUCTION OF GOLD AND SIL