Money Mischief_ Episodes in Monetary History - Milton Friedman [116]
[back]
***
* Cernuschi was a well-known French bimetallist.
[back]
***
† Interestingly enough, Jevons's predictions in another field, the future role and availability of coal, were equally far from the mark (see Jevons 186S).
[back]
***
* Bagehot also expresses doubt that the French will demonetize silver, which they did very soon thereafter.
[back]
***
* Resumption on gold in 1821 did not end the battle of the standards in Britain, any more than resumption on gold in 1879 ended the battle of the standards in the United States. "The most consistent and continuous attacks on the act of 1821 came from supporters of the silver standard or bimetallism" (Fetter 1973, p. 17). Fetter titles one subsection of his book on monetary orthodoxy "New Support for Bimetallism," with reference to reactions to the crisis of 1825; he titles another "Favorable Comments on Silver and Bimetallism" and writes (1965, pp. 124, 181): "The last serious Parliamentary move for a silver standard or bimetallism had been in 1835, but in the years between then and 1844 suggestions that silver should have a more permanent place in the monetary system came from many persons of widely diverse views on other aspects of monetary and banking policy." Later still, in the 1870s and 1880s, after the resumption on gold by the United States and the shift to gold by France, Germany, and other European countries had started a precipitous fall in the gold price of silver, "complications that fluctuations in the Indian exchange were creating for England, the pressure from the United States for bimetallism, and the domestic economic problems resulting from falling gold prices, led to serious consideration of the possibility of international bimetallism" (1973, p. 19). "A divided commission [appointed in 1887] recommended bimetallism, but the government did not push the proposal and the movement never got off the ground on the international political level" (Fetter 1973, p. 19).
[back]
***
* Two recent papers on bimetallism may be a sign that the situation is changing (Roccas 1987 and Dowd 1991).
[back]
***
* For a detailed discussion of "proposals to do something for silver, 1923 to 1933," see the chapter so titled in Leavens (1939, pp. 224–35).
[back]
***
* A minor earlier effect of the Thomas amendment was its provision that for a limited time silver would be accepted at the artificial price of 50 cents an ounce in payment of governmental war debts. Some 20-odd million ounces were received under this provision earlier in the year.
[back]
***
† The conference opened in London on June 12, 1933, and closed on July 27, 1933.
[back]
***
* An excellent summary of the act by Paris (1938, pp. 54–55) follows:
Purposes
(1) To increase the price of silver
(2) To increase the monetary stock of silver to one-third the value of the monetary gold stock
(3) To issue silver certificates
Measures to be taken to achieve the purposes
(1) Secretary of the Treasury to purchase silver at home and abroad upon terms and conditions he believes in the public interest
(2) Purchases to cease when price reaches monetary value ($1.2929 + per fine ounce), or monetary silver stock equals one-third, in value, of monetary gold stock
(3) Price of silver situated in the United States on May 1, 1934, not to exceed $0.50 per fine ounce
(4) Silver to be sold when monetary silver stock exceeds one-third, in value, of monetary gold stock
(5) Silver certificates to be issued up to a face amount not less than the cost of the silver purchased
(6) Secretary of the Treasury may control import, export, and other transactions relating to silver
(7) President may "nationalize" silver
(8) Profit on purchase and sale of silver to be taxed 50 percent.
[back]
***
* China was still on a silver standard, but India no longer was. However, India had been until 1893, and Indian coinage had remained