:

Carry that out, and it seems that the world would be just as well off, if it had only £10 in gold altogether and even the half of that would do just as well. What a prodigious discovery! See what it is, to have an economical genius, Meg. But really, as to calling Bimetallists lunatics, why, surely Mr. Giffen must be the Man in the Moon, my dear Meg.

But now, let us take a look at the historical origin of the present state of affairs, and trace the gradual progress towards this

culating medium as well as the larger. Ten millions would be as effective for that purpose as 100 millions.' Ricardo's Works, p. 263. The fallacy is, of course, the ordinary Ricardian fallacy in all his 'laws;' the assumption of absolute fluidity in the division of the money. If coins could suddenly be changed to half their size, no doubt this would be true: but this is just where the impossibility comes in. Custom fixes the coins i.e. the quantitative divisions of bullion: hence Ricardo's fluidity is impossible. It is just the same with his 'law' of rent, wages, and the rest. They all assume absolute fluidity, and become palpably ridiculous in a world where it does not exist.

consummation so devoutly to be wished, if we are to believe Mr. Giffen: this perfection of a currency system, this monometallic Papacy of Gold, so much admired by Mr. Giffen. People are apt to look upon the system of things they are born in as the eternal and immutable as-it-was-in-thebeginning-is-now-and-ever-shall be. But history will tell a very different story. She will tell us that gold is a mushroom upstart who, like all parvenus, has every reason to be ashamed of his origin, and the steps of his ascent. Mr. Giffen loves to contrast what he calls an automatic coinage, such as we

t

P. 80.

'A good standard should be like an ordinance of nature, so that practically no changes are ever required. In this last respect at least our own metallic currency for the last eighty years has been perfection.'

This is truly a Giffenian gem. Perfection is that in which, as in a law of nature, 'practically' no changes are ever required; no changes have ever been required in our currency during the last eighty years (!!), and so it is perfection! This it is to be a financial expert.

have in this country' with a 'managed currency, such as is involved in Bimetallism.' Of course the distinction is futile and merely verbal, for either system, and every system of money, is and must be managed' and not 'automatic.' But if, to oblige Mr. Giffen, we wish to keep his nomenclature, I will tell him, Meg, where he will find a skilfully managed currency:' in the history of England during this century.

6

History, Meg, is my hobby: there is nothing like history, when the historian is a man of the world, and is skilful accordingly to catch the spirit of events; like Autolycus, 'a snapper up of unconsidered trifles:' but alas! nowadays that is next door to impossible. It is true, no age ever attached more value to facts than our own: but the fact is nothing: it is the interpretation of the fact which is all. History, which of old was written by statesmen for statesmen,

and aimed at imparting political wisdom, is now compiled by students, partisans, religious monomaniacs, or pedantical antiquaries for the 'general reader' or the 'middle forms of schools,' and aims at tickling the palate, enforcing a theory, or enabling idiots to pass their exams. Is it astonishing that history degenerates, and the kernel escapes? if the spirit of action evaporates, the political lesson leaks out and is lost, and men of the world are the last people expected to know anything about the matter? The men who make history and the men who write history are not of the same species: they differ as widely as a hawk and a barn-door fowl: and how can the one give an account of the ways of the other? How can we expect a Warren Hastings from a Mill, a Napoleon from a Lanfrey, a Mary Stuart from a Regius Professor, or a Lord Beaconsfield from a Mr. T. P.

G

O'Connor? Qui peut donc écrire la vérité que ceux qui l'ont sentie? asks one who well understood the way of the world, the Cardinal de Retz: though it is only fair to inform you, dear Meg, that he asks that question at the moment that he is passing off a fiction as a fact. Who knows does not write: and who writes does not know: there is an epigram as true nowadays as when its great author (one of your own sex, by the way, Meg) first felt and expressed it. Even the wiseacres who write to the papers to instruct their generation are apt to display more zeal than profundity. It is true, that The Case against Bimetallism is to some extent a reprint of letters contributed to the pages of The Times. But we have seen reason to doubt, Meg, whether the 'currency specialist' whose letters embellish the columns of The Times is always an angel fearing to tread. We have tested his theory?