The effect of this upon the price of gold may be judged of by the fact, that that metal is now selling at Melbourne for £3 an ounce, while the Mint price is £3, 17s. 10½d., which the bank is still obliged to give for all the gold brought to its doors! Sir Robert Peel said that “he could not by any effort of his understanding form any other idea of a pound sterling but a certain determinate _weight of gold metal_;” and the _Times_, in the pride of its heart at the vast effect of his monetary system in depressing the price of produce of every soil, and enhancing the value of money, boasted, within the last three years, that that system “had _rendered the sovereign worth two sovereigns_.” We have not observed lately anything said in that able journal about the incomparable steadiness of a standard of value founded on “a determinate weight of gold;” nor do we hear any repetition, by its gifted authors, of its boasts about having rendered “the sovereign worth two sovereigns.” On the contrary, according to their usual system, when they see a change fairly set in, and likely to be lasting, they have gone at once over to the other side, and fairly out-Heroded Herod in their estimate of the prodigious effect upon general prices of the vast additions recently made to the metallic treasures of the world. The journal which was so strong upon Sir Robert Peel’s policy having rendered the sovereign worth two sovereigns, has lately issued the following just and striking observations upon the probable effect on prices of all sorts of the entire repeal of that policy by the hand of nature:— “To arrive at an exact solution, it would be necessary to ascertain the amount of gold and silver in the world, and the present annual consumption for coinage and the arts. This is impossible, and conjectural quantities must consequently be taken. The total of coin has been guessed at £400,000,000. Of this £150,000,000 may be assumed to be gold, and £250,000,000 silver. The annual consumption of gold is believed to be under £6,000,000.