Now, undoubtedly, the date which forms the dividing line between an epoch of approximate fixity in the relative value of gold and silver, and one of marked instability, is the year when the bimetallic system which had previously been in force in the Latin Union ceased to be in full operation, and we are irresistibly led to the conclusion that the operation of that system, established as it was in countries the population and commerce of which were considerable, exerted a material influence upon the relative value of the two metals. So long as that system was in force we think that, notwithstanding the changes in the production and use of the precious metals, it kept the market price of silver approximately steady at the ratio fixed by law between them, namely, 15-1/2 to 1. Nor does it appear to us _a priori_ unreasonable to suppose that the existence in the Latin Union of a bimetallic system with a ratio of 15-1/2 to 1 fixed between the two metals should have been capable of keeping the market price of silver steady at approximately that ratio. The paragraph quoted ascribes the effect thus produced to the bimetallic treaty of the Latin Union, a combination of Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, and France, entered into in 1865 for the purpose of maintaining similar conditions of coinage. But it will be observed that, so far as the ratio was concerned, precisely the same effect had been produced by France alone during the sixty-two years from the passage of its law of 1803 to 1865. Not only did the French law keep the metals together at a time when the larger annual yield was of silver, but it kept them together when the larger annual yield was of gold. Had not that law been in operation during the '50's, when a flood of gold poured from the mines of California and Australia, gold would have fallen, as in early times it more than once fell, to the ratio of 1 to 10, at which but 10 ounces of silver (instead of 15-1/2) would buy an ounce of gold. Thus the law of one country alone, a country then of not one-half the present population of the United States, held the metals together, so that to whatever extent gold fell in relation to commodities from 1848 to 1865, by reason of the large output of the mines, silver fell to the same extent, notwithstanding the enormous decrease in its production relatively to gold during that period.