economists. In Europe the propositions of the economists in question have never passed beyond the realm of speculation and theoretical discussion amongst professional economists. They have been regarded by some as probably sound, and capable of being made the basis of advantageous legislation. By others, superior in number and authority, they have been regarded as unsound. Inasmuch as they involve an international coinage union between all civilized countries and could be put to the experiment only on a scale involving immeasurable risks, the overwhelming judgment has been that they were out of the question. Here, however, our amateurs and empirics are in hot haste to make the experiments, without any coinage convention, or with the cooperation of only a few and the less important nations, that is to say under circumstances which even the most extreme bimetallists condemn as ruinous.
It must be observed then that there lies back of all this popular discussion a scientific and technical question of great delicacy. I might even say that it is a speculative question, or a question in speculative economics, for we have no experience of an international coinage union, or of a concurrent circulation, of the metals. We have to imagine the state of things proposed and reason a priori as to what must be the result. There is a postulate to all these schemes which has never been expressed and never been discussed, but which is assumed to be true. It has two different forms: (1) A concurrent circulation of gold and silver may be established in any country: (2) A concurrent circulation of gold and silver may be established by a coinage union of all civilized nations. These postulates, or we may say this postulate, for the latter includes the former, I have now to bring in question. If the science of money teaches that there cannot be a concurrent circulation of the metals, then the schemes which I have re-
