Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/166

 146 I show that as the price of Silver, like that of all other commodities, must fluctuate with the Supply of it and the Demand for it, so the open Mint in France acted as a perpetual demand at a fixed price would act, and that accordingly the price here could never fall below what the seller believed was the equivalent of the frs. 6·34554 which he would get in France.

I show that the grounds of the seller's belief must lie in his estimate of the value in sterling of his draft on Paris if he should send his Silver to the French Mint, and that he would necessarily compare the price so obtainable with the price offering in the English market, and accept no price here that should be lower than he could get by sending his Silver abroad.

Accordingly I give a table (p. 152), showing the English price that should correspond to the fixed price at the Paris Mint according to several quotations of Paris exchange; and another (p. 157), showing the actual quotations of price and exchange; also a chart, showing the lines of price and of exchange where they approximate and where they diverge, and where, on two or three occasions, owing to the uncertainty of exchange and the greater uncertainty of the due-date and consequent amount of discount on the Mint Certificates (bons de monnaie), they appear to have actually crossed.

I show that time after time in former years the price has fluctuated more, and fallen more than it did in the period in question, and that no project of closing the Mint to Silver is known to have been suggested; and that the course which the French Authorities pursued was one which needed no other real inducement than the excessive inflow of Silver from Germany into the Paris Mint.

I desired to know what was precisely the course of action pursued in 1872-3 by the Mint Authorities in France, and how far the material fall in the price of Silver corresponded in its dates with the successive limitations of the accustomed freedom of coinage. Sir Charles Fremantle was so good as to ask at my request for the necessary data from the Paris Mint, and the following letter written by M. Sudre to him on the 10th February was the first response.

, 10 Février 1890.

,

Vous trouverez ci-joint une note qui, je l'espère, repondra aux desiderata de M. Gibbs. Dans le cas contraire, vous n'auriez qu'à me faire connaître le supplément d'informations qu'il pourrait désirer et je ferais mon possible pour le satisfaire.

Evidemment les restrictions apportées en France à la