Dr. Soetbeer's table represents the general average price of one-hundred leading articles of commerce each year for a period of nearly forty years. He takes as a basis the general range of gold prices prevailing between 1847 and 1850, and calling that range 100, shows the relative standing toward it of the general range of prices for subsequent years, up to 1885. _Relation of prices by years from 1849 to 1885, the general range of prices of 1849 being rated at 100._ 1849 100.00 1851 100.21 1852 101.69 1853 113.69 1854 121.25 1855 124.23 1856 123.27 1857 130.11 1858 113.52 1859 116.34 1860 120.98 1861 118.10 1862 122.65 1863 125.49 1864 129.28 1865 122.63 1866 125.85 1867 124.44 1868 121.99 1869 123.38 1870 122.87 1871 127.03 1872 135.62 1873 138.28 1874 136.20 1875 129.85 1876 128.33 1877 127.70 1878 120.60 1879 117.10 1880 121.89 1881 121.07 1882 122.14 1883 122.24 1884 114.25 1885 108.27 Mr. Sauerbeck, also an advocate of the gold standard, and whose work has the approval of the Statistical Society, takes as a datum line the prices ruling from 1867 to 1870. Rating those at 100 he finds that by 1873 prices had risen to 111, by 1886 they had fallen to 69, and by September, 1887, to 68.7. He declares the average prices for the first nine months of 1887 to have been the lowest reached for a hundred years. BOTH GOLD AND SILVER VARIABLE IN VALUE. The fact that the metals have separated considerably since 1873, and that silver bullion now sells at less than par value of $1.29 per ounce, is taken to signify that silver has fallen--not that gold has risen. This proceeds from the assumption that whenever a change takes place in the relation between gold and any other article the change must necessarily be in the other article. This assumption, in turn, is based on the absurd idea that calling gold a "standard" will insure it against change. Among political economists it is a well-recognized principle that neither gold or silver is exempt from the universal application of the law of supply and demand. That law governs gold and silver, not only as commodities, but as money, and governs as well all other kinds of money that may be used. And while the advocate of the single gold standard is at all times ready to concede the truth of this assertion as to silver, he is confident that it does not and can not apply to gold; that the economic law which makes supply and demand a regulator of value is suspended as to gold. That a metallic money, whether of gold or silver, is very far from being stable is admitted by innumerable authorities, of whom I will cite only a few. Dr. Adam Smith, in his "Wealth of Nations," book 1, chapter 5, says: