I do not indulge the hope that the figures herein presented will affect the opinion of any pronounced monometallist. There seems to be a mysterious power in gold which blinds the eyes to deductions from statistics and experience; the internal conviction of the monometallist that gold stands still while everything else changes in value resists all logic. In this country, that is. In England, where it has not become a political question, and no one is interested in denying the facts, monometallists almost universally concede the appreciation of gold and defend monometallism on that ground. It is to the laboring producers of the United States, still open to conviction, that I present these figures, which to me seem absolutely conclusive. IS BIMETALLISM PRACTICABLE? Can this great nation coin silver and gold on the same terms, at the ratio of 16 to 1, and maintain a substantial parity? This question, like all others in political economy, may he argued theoretically or on the basis of actual experience. The monometallists say that one metal or the other always has been and always will be the cheaper at any ratio; that if both be freely coined, the dearer will be more valuable as bullion than as money, and will therefore go out of use. They say that, in spite of all devices to the contrary, we must have monometallism any how, and always on the basis of the cheaper metal. The bimetallist replies that such is, in truth, the natural tendency; but when the dearer metal is thrown out of use as money it thereby becomes cheaper, and as the cheaper metal must take its place, a vastly greater demand for it is created, and so it becomes dearer; thus an alternating action keeps the two near a parity, provided that the ratio corresponds nearly with the relative amounts of the two metals in the world's stock. They claim that the world has thus a far less fluctuating standard of value than it ever can have with one metal alone. The monometallist rejoins that this is "all theory." This brings both parties to the test of experience, and by common consent the experience of France in the seventy years from 1803 to 1873 is taken as the best practical test. At first view, it would seem as if the matter could easily be settled, as the time is so recent that there could be no great obscuration of the history; but on inquiry a determination of the real facts is found to be no such simple matter, and as the disturbance of natural law by war and other causes was almost constant, both sides find enough in the facts to make a basis for their respective contentions. Let us then consider this history.