Page:Coin's Financial School.djvu/52

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36
COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL.

filled with water and connected with each other by a pipe.

"Now," said Coin, pointing with the cane at the reservoirs and their connecting pipe, "the water in one of these reservoirs represents silver and the other gold. The connecting pipe makes them virtually one metal and either answers the requirement of the government

for money. So long as that connecting pipe remains, the water in the two reservoirs will remain even—the same height. Do away with the connecting pipe and the feed pipes at 4 and 5 will soon destroy the equilibrium, as their quantities vary from time to time.

"The law of free coinage (the connecting pipe) maintains the parity of the two metals. When that was taken away from silver and left on gold a disturbance was natural.

"Prior to 1873, when the connecting pipe was work-