Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/176

 156 dead and stagnant capital into a living and active form, to get a better balance at his bankers, whereby he can possess himself of as many of the existing Gold and Silver coins as he wants for his daily needs; and very few does he want. The buyer buys his bar of Silver either to export it to the East or to use it in the arts. I have shown that for whatever purpose he wants it he cannot possibly pay less for it than the equivalent of 200 francs a kilogramme.

It has been said that the reception of Silver by the Mint is no demand at all, because it is not purchase but merely a return in another form of the same ounce of Silver that is brought to it.

That seems to me to be mere logomachy. Whether the action is called purchase or no signifies nothing. Of course it only gives you back the Silver that you bring, but the 'other form' in which it returns it is Money. There is nothing mysterious about Money, but it has the unique quality of discharging debt. The Mint takes all the Silver you can bring, and what can Demand do more? Can it always do as much?

Again, it is alleged that, even if it be a demand it cannot be constant because it must fail in the end, as the 'corner' in copper failed. It is enough to say in answer that any such fictitious demand for a consumable commodity will fail by reason of the difficulty of reselling; but the Mint demand is, as the other objectors rightly say, only a return of the same commodity in a form which comes amiss to none; and the excess of which is only shown by enhancement of general prices.

A time might possibly come (though in real life it never did come while the French law of 1803 was in full operation) when the commercial demand—that is to say the demand for the arts and for export—would slacken; no more Silver plate being needed at the price, and no need existing for export to the East. Then the Mint demand, as being the only other outlet for the Silver would became positively, as it had been negatively, effective; and Silver would flow to silver-coining countries for coinage. The circulating medium, the measure of value, would accordingly increase, prices of all commodities, except Gold and Silver, would tend to rise, in other words the precious metals would tend to become depreciated, the demand for them for manufacturing purposes would tend to increase, and the result would be a cessation of the imports to the Mint.

To return from this excursus to the main question before us.

The following table shows the actual exchanges (short maximum rate) from April 1872 to September 1873, and the actual prices of Silver in London, also, in the last column, the price (calculated