that the tendency of all the wealthier and more civilised nations of the world is towards a monometallic gold standard, the superiority of which is so clearly established by the commercial supremacy of that country which for a long time was the only one which had succeeded in enforcing it; that it is idle and impossible to attempt any arrangement founded on another system; that as the experiment made to force silver dollars into use in the United States has failed and might fail under a convention, it is possible that payments in gold might be made a point of commercial honour.

A great many things are possible, but as it has never been found that in commerce or in any other profession people pay more as a point of honour than they are bound to do, and as all payments are made, with the exception of unimportant balances, by paper currency, book transfers, or cheques, it must be clear to every one that that metal or those metals which are the legal security for the ultimate payment of paper in various countries would be the foundation of all legal as well as honourable payment.

I confess, then, that I am not alarmed at this objection. It is founded, without doubt, upon a review of what has taken place in the United States in the eagerness which her citizens have displayed to seize the foremost place both as to national and commercial credit.

Another objection made by a very able writer is that, whatever may be the evils connected with the depreciation of prices and the depression of trade in England, the damage done to India by the fall in the exchanges is wholly imaginary. He states that it 'is political economy of the most elementary description, that the low rate of exchange ruling between England and India has the effect of checking exports to India, and of stimulating imports thence, and that this is precisely what is wanted if India is to pay her obligations here in any shape, and that without such fall in the exchange her financial straits would be much worse than they are.'

There is some truth in this assertion, but then it is utterly incompatible with the arguments generally used by the monometallists, that to raise the value of silver and to depreciate that of gold to their old ratio would inflict a loss upon gold-using countries and confer a great benefit upon those using silver.

One writer has estimated the loss of England by such a transaction as 8,000,000l. on her stock of gold, and the profit of France on her stock of silver as 16,000,000l.

Nothing can show more clearly the divergence of opinions held by monometallists as to the practical effect of the carrying out of their doctrines to their legitimate conclusion than these two surmises, made by equally competent thinkers and writers.

The next objection which I am bound to notice is the fear which exists in the minds of monometallists as to what would happen in time of war. We are told that a war-making nation would necessarily break the convention and refuse free minting: that is to say, that

if Russia or Chili go to war and issue a forced paper currency, this act would be in breach of the bimetallic convention.

Now, what really happens on such an event taking place is that a belligerent nation does not increase the volume of its own currency by using pieces of paper instead of metal, but by exporting its own. metal it increases the volume of the currency in the world at large. Its pieces of paper being discredited, it is obliged to use the precious inetals for the payment of everything to be bought abroad, and for its belligerent operations, and it can and does enforce upon its subjects the duty of receiving and paying in pieces of paper at home.

The monometallist seems to imagine that at the same moment when a belligerent is by a natural process exporting its precious metals, some other country or body of merchants, either from mere curiosity or from a desire to test the convention, would send precious metals back into that belligerent country and have them minted. This proposition is so absurd that it need only be stated clearly to secure its refutation.

The issue of paper by a belligerent would have, under a bimetallic convention, precisely the same effect which it has now. The explanation of the operation would, however, lead me into a too lengthy paper. I content myself, then, with stating my belief that the temporary effect of war and of forced paper currencies would be somewhat the same as a large discovery of the precious metals, and would be spread over a larger surface and more evenly under an international bimetallic convention than with the present separate national standards.

Having answered some of the most recent objections started to bimetallism, I approach the consideration of certain remedies which have been suggested in substitution of it. One proposal is to permit the raising of the limit of legal currency of silver coin to five pounds, instead of two pounds as at present. Considering that any one may, if he like it, pay forty shillings in discharge of a debt, and that, as far as my experience goes, it is never done, it is highly improbable that any one would dream of carrying about sums of two, three, or four pounds in his pocket in silver for the purpose of vindicating the rights of that beautiful metal.

Another plan is to issue twenty or thirty millions of one-pound notes, of which twenty might be on securities. Thus we find men who are aghast at the notion of a currency which, though it does not rest upon gold alone, is yet founded upon a metallic basis quite ready to increase the circulation by emitting a large amount of paper, having no tangible metallic basis at all. If this proposition means anything, it means that in England, as is now the case in Ireland and Scotland, every one would use one-pound notes instead of sovereigns. Those who are in favour of this proposition would do well to read the chapter in Lord Liverpool on paper currency, in which he

says:

It is certain that the smaller notes of the Bank of England, and those issued by country bankers, have supplanted the gold coins, usurped their functions, and driven a great part of them out of circulation: in some parts of Great Britain, and especially in the southern parts of Ireland, small notes have been issued to supply the place of silver coins, of which there is certainly a great deficiency.

I will first observe, that if this practice is suffered to continue, as at present, without any limitation, there can be neither use nor advantage in converting bullion of either of the precious metals into coins, except so far as it may serve for the convenience of your Majesty's subjects in their most private concerns; that is, no greater quantity than many of the writers who have of late speculated on this subject will allow to continue in currency: the bullion of which these coins are made had better be exported in its natural state, like any other unmanufactured commodity for the use of which the trade of the country has no occasion. The coins of your Majesty, when carried into foreign countries, will only be valued as bullion; and the precious metals, whether exported in coins or in bullion, will equally serve the purpose of a commercial capital; and it is useless and absurd to impose upon the public the expense of making coins, merely for the purpose of sending them out of the kingdom.

I have now endeavoured to show that international bimetallism would be in accordance with the opinions and principles of some of those who are looked up to by economical writers with profound and deserved veneration; that Sir Robert Peel admitted bimetallism to be in accordance with the principle of the metallic standard; that Lord Ashburton had good reason for thinking that it would have the effect of facilitating the return to commercial calm after ordinary stormy weather; and that the views of Lord Liverpool as to the value of bank money would be more nearly acted upon by creating an international measure of value than by adhering to a separate national standard.

The most singular part of the whole controversy is that both this country and the United States seem to have abolished the silver element in their standard accidentally.

It has already been shown that in 1819 the question of silver hardly found a place in the resumption discussion in England, and with regard to the United States Mr. Groesbeck, the delegate of that country at the conference of 1878, stated that the demonetisation of silver in 1873 was passed through inadvertence,' and on being asked what he meant by it he said that it had occurred when the Government was in a state of suspension, and when public attention was not sufficiently directed to the subject, and further that a number of members of Congress had confessed to him that they had not known what they were doing.

The Conference at Paris has now been adjourned till the 30th of June, in order that the delegates may receive fresh instructions. The opinions of most of the governments were already so well known that, beyond bringing the questions at issue into a still more definite and condensed shape than they were before, there is little fresh to remark upon except the important propositions made on behalf of

the Indian Government by Sir Louis Mallet, and by Baron de Thielmann on behalf of Germany.

The former is simply a promise not to demonetise silver. The German proposition is founded on the admission that 87,000,000l. of gold had been coined, that 54,000,000l. of silver had been demonetised, and that the expenses of this operation had amounted to 2,200,000l., while 25,000,000l. of silver still remains in Germany.

To enable those countries where silver had not been demonetised to carry out the reforms which the Conference had met to consider, the German Empire is willing to abstain from all sales of silver for a fixed period, and to confine itself afterwards to such a limited amount as would not encumber the general market.

Thalers might be forbidden to be sent to the mints of the bimetallic union, or those mints might refuse to take them, so as to make the operation of selling them too costly.

Germany would also be willing to recall the gold pieces of five marks and the treasury notes of the same value and to re-issue five and two mark pieces to the amount of about 8,000,000l., taking as a base a ratio between the two metals as near as possible to 15 instead of that which, according to the present law, equals a ratio of about 1 to 14.

Having heard the above propositions from Germany, the energies of the Conference were devoted on the one hand to the persuasion of the English delegates to make some concessions, and on the other to induce France and the United States to proceed to a practical solution in case England should be unwilling to accede to their wishes.

It would be obviously improper for me to offer any opinions on the projects submitted or to be submitted to our Government in furtherance of the common object which all parties have in viewnamely, the steadying of the prices of the precious metals in relation to commodities.

In this discussion my wish has been to keep clear from anything like zeal and enthusiasm. I am absolutely without any prejudice in the matter, and I have confined myself, in the evidence I have quoted, with the exception of that of Lord Ashburton, to the facts honestly brought out by those from whom I differ, so that I may say that the small bias which exists in my mind upon the subject is almost entirely due to the study of my opponents' opinions.

If, then, I am forced to answer the question What is a pound?' I incline to answer it in the words of Sir Robert Peel-namely, that we ought to return to the ancient standard of the realm,' or, as the Americans call it, the dollar of our fathers,' rather than to adhere to the measure carried by that statesman, and founded upon Lord Liverpool's letter.

H. R. GRENFELL.

ERNEST RENAN.

THE little town of St. Renan in Cornwall, and various springs and waters in other Celtic regions, preserve for us the memory of an anomalous and a formidable saint. Ronan or Renan, indeed, seems properly to have been one of those autochthonous divinities, connected with earth and the elements, who preceded almost everywhere the advent of more exalted gods. He was received, however, after some hesitation, into the Christian Pantheon, and became the eponymous saint of a Celtic clan. This clan of Renan migrated from Cardiganshire to Ledano on the Trieux in Brittany, about the year 480, and have ever since lived in honourable poverty, engaged in tilling the ground and fishing on the Breton coast; one of the families who there form an unexhausted repository of the pieties and loyalties of the past.

From this simple and virtuous stock, in this atmosphere of old-world calm, Ernest Renan was born sixty years ago. In a charming series of autobiographical papers he has sketched his own early years; his childhood surrounded by legends of the saints and of the sea; his schooling received from the pious priests of Tréguier; and then his sudden transference, in 1836, as the most promising boy of his district, to the Petit Séminaire Saint Nicolas du Chardonnet at Paris, where for three years he was one of M. Dupanloup's most eager pupils. Thence he was sent for four years to Issy, the country establishment of the Séminaire Saint-Sulpice, to receive his final preparation for the priesthood. For to that life he had always aspired, and had he been left beneath the shadow of his Breton cathedral, he might have become a learned and not an unorthodox priest. But now his education had gone too far; sojourn in Paris, even in a seminary, had awakened his critical and scientific interests, and he began to feel that such a career was impossible to him. He left it with hesitation and much self-questioning, but without bitterness and without subsequent regrets. Much pain naturally followed on this disruption of life-long affections and ties. There were material hardships too, but his sister's devoted care solaced and supported him til he had made friends of his own, and reached an independent position. His attain

Revue des Deux Mondes, September, October, 1876; November, 1880.