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176 account for all transactions whatsoever. The population of the country is now two and a half times what it was in the war time, and its wealth is probably a much greater multiple. The debts now outstanding have, with unimportant exceptions, been contracted since the resumption of specie payments. What is now proposed is to enter upon a new period of these alternations of wrong and injustice, first to creditors, then to debtors, and so on, and to do this in a time of peace, not from any political necessity, but on the ground of some economic interpretations of the facts of the market, which are incapable of verification and proof, when they are not obviously erroneous and partisan. The effect of the various compromises with silver is that the currency is once more intricate and complicated, excessive and confused, so that few can understand it, and it offers all sorts of chances for perverse and mischievous interpretations.

Demonetization Removed No Money from Use.

The law of 1873 never threw a dollar of silver or other currency out of circulation. We hear it asserted that "demonetization" destroyed half the people's money. People say this who know nothing of the facts, but infer that demonetization must mean that some silver dollars which were money had that character taken from them. No one of the other demonetizations, which took place in Europe at about the same time, diminished the money in use. The result of changes in 1873-1874 was that the amount of silver coin in use in Europe was greatly increased, and has remained so since.

The resumption of specie payments after 1873 by a number of nations which had issued paper money in the previous period, and the alternate expenditure and re-collection of war-hoards of gold, had far greater importance than the demonetizations.