Excerpt from Future Paper Money of This Country We are somewhat encouraged, as we see that Mr. Burchard, Director of the U. S. Mint, hitherto an earnest advocate of con tinued coinage of the standard silver dollar, advises its discontinu ance, on the ground that, so far from promoting the union among the nations to fix a ratio of'valuation between silver and gold by which 155 grains of the former shall be equal to one of the latter, it rather retards that consummation. We warmly second his proposal, if we cannot second his reasons for it. For we do not believe it in the power of the legislation of one or many nations to establish a fixed ratio of value between silver and gold, any more than between iron and lead, wheat and maize. Their rel ative value must in the long-run be determined by their intrin sic value, and this in turn by the cost of production interwork ing with the law of supply and demand. Such value cannot long, in any normal state of things, exceed the cost of its re production. On the other hand, it will cease to be reproduced at existing prices unless they afford a profit. Since, therefore, silver continues to be largely produced at present market rates, and, even so, makes fortunes for many of its producers, it is idle to claim that it has, or by legislation can permanently be made to have, more than its market value. The rate, too, at which gold bullion sells, exceptional disturbing influences aside, fairly represents the cost of producing it as compared with silver. If it did not, if at present market rates mining gold were decidedly more profitable than mining silver, gold-mining would increase until the equilibration of the relative cost and price of the two metals would be effected. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.