In June 1885 the premium rose to 50 per cent.; in 1886, it was 39 per cent.; in 1887, 35 per cent.; in July 1888 53 per cent., finally, in 1889, it proceeded by leaps and bounds; 50 per cent. in January, it was 53 per cent. a month later; in March it was 55 per cent., rising to 120 per cent. in September and October, and 130 per cent. in November and December, despite the empirical measures of alleviation adopted, amid violent disputes, by the Minister of Finance. Thus the Republic entered on the year 1890; a year of grave political and financial disaster. On the one hand was the revolutionary movement, prepared by the connivance of part of the army and the navy; on the other hand, the crushing depreciation of paper, ending in an absolute catastrophe which affected both public and private fortunes. In the month of April of that year the premium increased to 215 per cent.; that is, 100 piastres in gold were equivalent to 315 in paper. In July, when the revolution broke out, it stood at 217 per cent. In November the Government which replaced that which had been attacked by the insurgents prohibited the quotation of gold. Nevertheless, the premium rose to 225 per cent, and remained at that figure until December. We must remember that, in spite of the downfall of paper, the economic vitality of the Republic had suffered no serious blow; no war had broken out, no international complication had occurred; there was, in short, no organic cause to which the premium could be attributed. Certainly, the commercial balance was unfavourable; but that phenomenon has not the significance generally attributed to it. The true causes of this crushing state of affairs were exclusively of a financial and administrative nature. It was the inevitable result of the manner in which paper money had been issued to serve the needs of the Government, and to feed the furnace of speculation. One cannot forget that at the end of 1886 the total issue of paper amounted to $80,251,380; that in less than two years it was nearly doubled, amounting to $147,503,911; while in 1890 the paper currency reached the figure of $196,882,500. But this situation, painful as it was, could not be suddenly changed for the better; other causes of a like nature were about to intensify it. The new President, who came into power after the revolutionary outbreak found himself forced, by various circumstances, to increase the existing circulation of paper. The new issues amounted to $150,000,000. As was only to be expected, such an issue on the back of the existing paper currency, which exceeded $196,000,000, could only produce a disastrous fall in paper. Its depreciation touched the lowest point in the history of the Argentine, or of any other country during the second half of the nineteenth century; the blackboard of the Stock Exchange showed an exchange value of 464 per cent. or a premium of 364 per cent., in the third week of October 1891. This was the record of monetary depreciation.