Show old did saeed new tori journal A contemporary quotes the journals r remark that bimetallic coinage Is not RU an untried experiment but wu was an approved success through the greater part of our national life and exclaims how was it an approved success did it ever for one mouth month maintain the th parity of the metals did it ever during the forty years of its existence div us concurrent circulation of gold and silver if so when jid did this magical ratio ever do either of these things in any other country if so where here on the very same page our contemporary prints a table that ought to enable it to answer its own questions the figures show the relative production of silver and gold for the present century the outputs as given were gold silver ounces ounces lioi io 10 59 to I 1 1811 20 90 1 7 48 to I 1 18 91 30 3 32 to 1 1831 1931 40 30 to 1 1841 50 12 to I 1 60 2933 96 4 to 1 1860 70 wl 9 6 to 1 IS 1870 0 95 17 to 1 if this table had been supplemented by another exhibiting the market value of the metals it would have shown that while in the first farst seventy years yearb of the century the production fluctuated so enormously that in one decade only four ounces of silver were produced to one of gold and in another the disparity was fifty to one the average annual market ratios ranged for almost the whole time in the neighborhood of 15 to 1 and never varied more than tb from 1504 to I 1 to 1625 16 25 to 1 L it would also have shown that while the production from 1870 to approached more nearly to the mint proportions than ever before in the century the value of silver fluctuated between 1557 and 2256 to L concurrent circulation la is not the test of a successful monetary policy although there was never a year la in times of spede payments between IM 1803 and 1874 when silver five franc pieces and gold twenty franc pie pieces ces did not circulate together in france and when both gold and silver were not coined at the french mints the real eal test ts Is stability of value it makes little difference I 1 whether one metal or the other or both be in circulation if the fluctuations in value can be kept within narrow ni i limits between 1837 and 1873 the gold value of U i grains of pure silver never averaged more than 1053 or less than 1003 the range of fluctuation was less than five cents on the dollar in thirty six years yeam between ast 1st 3 and 1895 the gold value of the sa same e amount of silver varied between cents and 1004 1 there was a grea greater ter fluctuation in a week than there had been with open mints in seventy years that ought to an answer the question whether the policy of open mints proved a success or not as compared with the one that has followed it |