To the favourers of a gold system it was conceded that in the maintenance of the previous legal ratio of 15.988, the silver dollar should be reserved for Treasury reckonings, and a maximum minting limit of 4 million dollars monthly should be fixed. The bimetallists gained the fixing of a minimum limit of 2 million dollars monthly of silver coinage, and the clause enjoining the President of the United States to take steps for the meeting of an international conference. [Sidenote: UNITED STATES: BLAND AND SHERMAN ACTS] This scheme became law immediately, and on the 1st January 1879 the United States resumed specie payment. As far as the actual circulation of the country is concerned this return is only nominally effective. The habit of employing redeemable paper had grown too strong and continuous, and even the rule of the New York banking-houses, to employ only gold in clearing-house settlements, has been formally, though not absolutely, abolished by the Act of Congress of 12th July 1882, which provided that no national bank should be a member of a clearing-house at which gold and silver certificates were not accepted in payment of balances. The Bland Bill deceived the hope of both parties, as such a compromise might be expected to do. It remained in force, notwithstanding, till August 1890, and during the twelve years, 1878-1890, the United States coined a matter of 370 million silver dollars, employing therein 9 million kilogrammes of silver--a third of the total contemporary production. Almost yearly, up to 1887, the repeal of the silver purchase clauses of the Bland Bill and the suspension of the silver coinage was recommended to Congress by presidential message, and in the reports of the Secretary of the Treasury. In December 1889 President Harrison and Secretary Windam definitely proposed to cease the coining of silver, and to limit the issues of silver certificates to the value of the silver bullion as deposited, reckoning that value at its then market price. From these proposals sprang, by the same peculiar process of committee gestation which had produced the Bland Act, the compromise which passed on the 14th July 1890, under the title of the Sherman Act. This act represents a compromise not of principles but of self-seeking interests. The main regulations of the law, which came into force on the 13th August 1890, were:-- 1. The Secretary of the Treasury is to purchase silver to not more than the monthly amount of 4,500,000 oz. at the market price, so long as that price is below 129.29 cents per oz. 2, 3. To issue Treasury notes against the purchases, the said notes to be full legal tender, and capable of forming part of bank reserves.