What makes the difference? It is the fact of monetization for one of the metals, and demonetization for the other. Does anybody suppose that ten dollars of silver fused into a lump would not still be worth ten dollars if the lump were re-coinable? Does anybody suppose that ten gold dollars fused into a lump would still be worth ten dollars if the lump were not re-coinable? The fact of monetization not only confirms the value of one metal, but it insures the value of the other also--that is, it _would_ insure it if monetization were not denied. Incidentally, this plain statement of the case utterly confutes the only seemingly valid argument, that is the two-bag argument, with which the goldites have been able to support their theory of "sound" money. Mr. Lepper's assertion that monetization does not confer commercial value will have to rise through many circles in the spiral of intelligence before it reaches the plane of nonsense. Further on in his paper, Mr. Lepper says: "The inevitable result of free coinage at a fixed ratio, is to expel the undervalued metal from circulation." Who taught him that? Perhaps Gresham taught him. If so, he taught him what is not true. It is incredible that intelligent people should be humbugged with such a fallacious proposition as Gresham's so-called "law." Suppose that under free coinage, gold be undervalued, and suppose that, being so, it begins to vanish--where will it go to? To the Bank of England? If so, what will be the effect on the price of gold in the Bank of England? Will not the price begin to fall at that point at which the stream of gold pours out? And will it not continue to fall as long as the outflow goes on? What, on the other hand, will be the effect on the money market at that point from which the outflow is established? Will there not be produced a stringency behind the outflow, and will not all kinds of money begin to appreciate at that point from which the flow begins? And will not this stringency become greater and greater as long as the outflow continues? And will not the prices of all kinds of money, silver in particular, begin to rise until the outflow ceases? This is to say that the price of gold, like the price of anything else whatsoever, will fall wherever it accumulates, and the price of silver will rise in every place from which the gold is drained away, until a parity of values between the two money metals shall be inevitably established. This is the _real_ law of two money metals circulating together; and Gresham's so-called "law" is only the hocus-pocus and ghost of a law that is true to begin with, and is not true to end with.