nge between one and another.
The productiveness of the silver mines, there is no doubt, is greater
and more regular than those of gold; but the enormous increase of the
silver currency on the Continent, in the United States, and even in
India, and our own colonies, has kept the price of silver a little
below five shillings an ounce. On the other hand the English standard
of value being gold only, the drain of gold is generally towards
England, while that of silver is towards the Continent. We do not doubt
that the English Mint price of gold, L3 17s. 10-1/2d. an ounce, and the
price at which the Bank of England are compelled to purchase, L3 17s.
9d. an ounce, are causes which not only regulate, but, within certain
limits, determine, the price of gold throughout the world. Suppose, for
a moment, the circulation of England, exceeding thirty millions and the
Bank store of fifteen millions, to be thrown on the markets of Europe,
by an alteration of the standard of value--how material would be the
fall in price! It is equally obvious that England would be first and
most materially affected by any large and sudden production of her
standard of value; for though America would be enriched by the
discovery of the precious metals within her own territories, it is only
because she would possess a larger fund to exchange for more useful and
necessary products of labour. The value of silver would not fall,
assuming the supply and demand to be equalised, but gold would fall in
relation to silver, and the existing proportion (about 15 to 1) could
no longer be maintained. Then prices would rise of all articles now
estimated in our currency--i.e. an ounce of gold would exchange for
less than at present. And, assuming the price of silver to keep up as
heretofore, about 5s. an ounce, our sovereign would be valued less in
other countries, and all exchange operations would be sensibly
affected. The only countervailing influence in the reduction of gold
to, say, only double the price of silver, would be an increased
consumption in articles of taste and manufacture, which, however, can
only be speculative and uncertain. It is said by accounts from
California that five hundred miles lie open to the avarice of
gold-hunters, and that some adventurers have collected from 1,200 to
1,800 dollars a-day; the probable average of each man's earnings being
from 8 to 10 dollars a-day, or, let us say, L2. The same authority
avers there is room and verge eno