ABSTRACT
The falling off in the demand for silver has occurred in countries such as France and the United States, where a double standard is employed; that is, where payments may be made either in sums of gold or silver money indifferently, such sums containing fixed relative quantities of the metals of which they are composed. In these cases, when gold became a little cheaper, it was gradually preferred as the medium of exchange. It will be said that if gold has acquired new channels of circulation in France and the United States, which it must fill up before becoming sensibly depreciated, on the other hand, it has lost a market in Holland and British India. There is a circumstance which has helped to conceal whatever change has as yet occurred in the value of gold; and this is to be found in the character of the variations in prices which have taken place of late years.
