For the local public burden I must, of course, take the popula

tion for 1894; from this we get:

Working class,

Other classes,

27,150,000

11,636,000

38,786,000

On this basis the local public burdens per head are as follows:

The total public burden per head per annum, both imperial and local, is then:

Perhaps a better idea of the weight of taxation is given if we consider the burden per family, rather than per head. If we assume that on the average there are five persons to a family, we can state the results as follows:

In conclusion, I wish distinctly to say that the above figures are very doubtful, but in the present state of our statistical information I doubt whether we can get much better ones. I think, however, that they give us a sufficiently good guess at the incidence to enable us to proceed to the second question: "Is the system of taxation which leads to the above results a fair one?" This I must leave to the individual judgments of my readers.

London, England.

C. P. SANGer.

Note.-The following estimate derived from the figures given above may indicate from another point of view how far my figures are prima facie reasonable. Calculated average consumption per head in the working classes to roughly correspond with my estimates.

PREVAILING THEORIES IN EUROPE AS TO THE INFLUENCE OF MONEY ON INTER

THE

NATIONAL EXCHANGE.1

HE countries of Europe with poor money now are those that have either silver or paper money as a medium of exchange, whether or not the paper is convertible into silver. On the whole, if the calculations of Probyn are accurate, there are countries with a population of 715 millions that have such monetary systems.2 But, it is understood, they make up the countries lowest in economic development; they are either India or China, or some of the Latin countries of Europe, or some of the South American republics.

On the other hand, the economic market is undoubtedly ruled by those countries, with a population of 360 millions, that have either a gold currency or a paper currency convertible into gold. If the economic crisis undergone by Russia in 1892 had been undergone by England, the effect on the economic market of the world would undoubtedly have been much more serious. In fact, such was the case with the bankruptcy of the firm of Baring Brothers, and its evil consequences are still felt all over Europe. And, inasmuch as some economic markets rule others, this bankruptcy had great effect on the money market of Europe. Gold money rules absolutely over silver money, and is practically the only effective one. In a busy market the existence at par of two currencies so widely different is incompatible: one drives out the other, and remains the only real money of that economic market, and by such money all prices are determined. In countries where the double standard is in vogue, one of the metals has always ruled the other, and the two coined metals have never constituted an indivisible whole, as bimetallists claim.3 These two media of exchange

1 Translated from the Italian by Mr. Anthony Spinello of New Haven, Conn. Leslie C. Probyn, Gold and Silver and World's Monies, Bankers' Magazine (London), March, 1895, p. 345.

3 Edward Atkinson, The Philosophy of Money, The Monist, April, 1896, Vol. vi, p. 347.

have so seldom acted together in any epoch, that the difficulties of establishing their ratio have been very great, nay, insurmountable. Mirabeau and Calonne in France, Morris and Hamilton in the United States, tell us how hard a task it was for their respective countries to solve the problem, and to what arbitrary measures it led in the last century. Schimmel undertook to write a history of the parity of gold and silver; but, owing to the great variety and disagreement in the available data, he had to write two entirely separate histories. Very radical differences in the ratio of gold to silver during the various historical epochs are to be found in the tables of Soetbeer and Köhler, as well as in those compiled by Arnold Luskin and Le Blanc. If gold has been very scarce, it was because it was not put in circulation, but remained locked up in public or private safes. When Charles V caused some gold and silver money to be coined, he never expected to establish bimetallism: the true money then was silver. Gold money was of secondary importance, and was rarely used. This is so true that from the XIIIth century until the XVIIIth the need of declaring or restricting the fluctuation of either money was not felt in practical life. One of the two forms of money was always more effective than the other. Inconveniences at times were met with on account of sudden changes in the value of the two metals, which caused the transformation of silver monometallism into that of gold, and vice versa. To avoid such inconveniences, some attempts were made, like those of Henry III, who sanctioned by law gold monometallism in his proclamation of November 13, 1577, or like the attempts of the city of Florence, which also tried monometallism in 1554, but in vain. Bimetallism has always resolved itself into silver monometallism whenever the price of gold as a commodity has become higher than the corresponding price of silver as money and as a commodity. On the other hand, there has been gold monometallism whenever the price of silver as a commodity has been greater than the gold as a commodity and as money.2

1 W. A. Shaw, The History of Currency, London, 1896.

2 Consult Walras, Questions Economiques, Lausanne, 1893, p. 403.

In France, the country which has been proclaimed the fatherland of bimetallism, pure bimetallism has almost never existed. Disregarding the fact that, legally, bimetallism has, since 1876, become monometallism "boiteu," or limping monometallism, as they say, on account of the mass of coined silver in circulation, even when the coinage of both metals was free, that bimetallism always resulted in practical monometallism.1 Under the Consulate and the first Empire [1804-1814], that is to say, during the period immediately after the famous law of March, 1803, 52 millions of francs were coined in gold and 18 millions of francs in silver. But the disproportion in such coinage was greater under the Restoration: then for 1,217 millions of silver coinage only 442 millions of gold were coined; and under Louis Phillippe for 216 millions in gold 1,693 millions were coined in silver. This shows that bimetallism even if established by law, resolves itself completely or in part into monometallism, according to the commercial value of the two precious metals. The monetary standard and the value of the two metals have never been established by mere chance or caprice. It resulted naturally that about the year 1852 silver was at a premium over gold, and it was also a natural result that determined the premium of gold over silver after 1870. About 1866 France was preparing to change her monetary system to gold monometallism, and she did so to satisfy the needs of her commerce, while the political events hindered her in its accomplishment. The same needs impelled Germany to establish monometallism in 1873. When France adopted gold monometallism, the task was undertaken and completed by its merchants. It is not the demonetization of German silver that caused the depreciation of that metal. Silver after 1870 depreciated not only on account of the influence of increased production, but also because it proved to be a more inconvenient medium in international exchange than gold. In fact, international trade developed prodigiously after 1860. Since 1870 the economic market has tended to become more

1 Bamberger, le metal argent, Paris, 1893, p. 312.

' Romanelli, Legislazione, e coniazzione monetarie, Archivio di Statistica: Roma, 1877, 1°, fasc. IV, p. 12.