As I have shown in greater detail elsewhere, by reference to the table of annual production of the metals, it will be observed that from 1803 to 1820, the production was in the proportion of four dollars of silver to one of gold; from 1821 to 1840 two of silver to one of gold, from 1841 to 1850 one dollar of silver, to one of gold, from 1851 to 1860 four dollars of gold to one of silver, from 1861 to 1865 three of gold to one of silver, from 1866 to 1870 two of gold to one of silver, in 1871 and 1872 one-and-a-half of gold to one of silver. Notwithstanding these extreme variations in the relative annual production the law of France constituted a ligature sufficient to hold the metals in line at the ratio of 15-1/2 to 1, and this not for France alone but for the whole world. If that period does not offer sufficient proof of the power of law, under varying conditions of supply, to tie the metals together and keep them so, no degree of proof will suffice, for the vacillations of their relative production have been greater during this century than at any former period in the history of the world. IS AN INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENT NECESSARY? If that could be done by a nation with a population of 25,000,000 to 35,000,000, what difficulty could be experienced by a nation of 65,000,000 in accomplishing the same result? Yet we are told that international agreement is necessary to restore silver to its ancient right as a full-money metal. Those who suggest such an agreement forget that while this nation is a borrower of money, the first and principal nation to demonetize silver is the greatest money lender known to history. Is it for a moment to be supposed that the shrewd English creditor classes will enter into any agreement which will deprive them of the spoils of so delicate and ingenious a system of usury; a system not only not banned by law, but, on the contrary, having the special approval and protection of statutes, and the active support and approval of all the complaisant moralists, philosophers, and financiers of the age? While they are dilligently gathering in the proceeds of this operation a diversion is kept up for the occupation and amusement of dilettant financiers and economists, by invoking a discussion of the ratio that should be maintained between the metals. The ratio is the pretext on which conference after conference has been called. The advocates of the single gold standard contend that hostile legislation had no influence in effecting the separation of the metals, and that the reversal of that legislation can not and will not restore them to a parity unless the principal commercial nations of the western world join in the work of rehabilitation. As illustrating the force of law on the relation of the metals I will read a suggestive paragraph from the report of the Royal Commission of England (1886), Part I, section 192: