Before the completion of these widespread changes, the great fall in the gold price of silver had begun, and the United States in her silver-producing interests, Great Britain in the interests of her Indian dependency and in those of her trade with silver-using countries, and the whole commercial world generally in the dislocation of international exchange, found themselves menaced by gravest danger. [Sidenote: THE DEPRECIATION OF SILVER] Before the inrush of silver to the Mint, caused by such a fall, the Latin Union first limited and then abandoned its coining of the 5-franc piece. The fall of silver became thereby only the more acute and confirmed. By July 1876 it had sunk to 46-3/4 per oz. Apprehension was universally felt, and in both England and the United States fresh commissions were appointed to consider the question. The English commission on the depreciation of silver was appointed in March 1876, and sat from the 20th March to the 8th May, under the presidency of Mr. Goschen. The investigation turned upon the causes of the prevailing situation, without any attempt at the suggestion of a remedial positive system. Later, in the same year (15th August), the American Congress voted the appointment of a like commission, to inquire into the causes of the depreciation of silver and into the feasibility of a reconstruction of a bimetallic system, as well as to devise a ratio and measures for the facilitation of a return to cash payments in the United States. This commission resulted in a double report, the 'majority' and the 'minority' report. The majority, comprising Messrs. Jones, Bogy, Willard, Groesbeck, and Bland, recommended the remonetisation of silver and the recourse to a fresh international conference. This latter proposition was expressed in the compromise known as the Bland Bill, the "Act to authorise the coinage of the standard silver dollar, and to restore its legal tender character, 28th February 1878." Section 2 of this law imposed it upon the President of the United States to invite the members of the Latin Union and the other interested nations to an international conference. On the invitation of France this conference met in Paris on 10th August 1878. The American delegates proposed the free coinage of silver in an international agreement and its unrestricted employ on a full equality of tender with gold. The delegates of Belgium, Switzerland, and Norway combated the proposals, and, on the part of England, Mr. Goschen declared that while the complete demonetisation of silver portended a commercial crisis to which no parallel could be found, England could consent to no serious modification of her currency system. Germany was not represented, and in her absence France adopted a waiting policy, and the conference closed with an impotent expression of opinion that, in view of the difference of opinion, it was useless to discuss an international ratio, and that,