This prejudice was in no way confined to a gold-standard country like England. The closing of the Mints by the Latin Union is proof positive of the change in the attitude of the bimetallic countries. As Jevons argued²²⁸:— ²²⁸ _Money and Mechanism of Exchange_, 1890, p. 1423. “So long … as its operation resulted in substituting a beautiful coinage of napoleons, half-napoleons, and five-franc pieces in gold for the old heavy silver écus, there was no complaint, and the French people admired the action of their compensatory system. But when [after 1873] it became evident that the heavy silver currency was coming back again … the matter assumed a different form.” So great was the prejudice in favour of gold that the interests of the chief Powers in the various Conferences, it may be truly said, waxed and waned with the changes in the volume of their gold reserves.²²⁹ In 1878 the United States took the lead in calling the Conference because the [pg 140] working of the Bland Allison Act checked the inflow of gold necessary for its cash payments. Germany was indifferent because she had enough gold and was confident of selling off her demonetized silver without loss. In 1881 France and Germany showed more anxiety for reform because the former had lost all her gold and the latter was unable to palm off her silver. By 1892 none was so poorly supplied with gold as was the United States, largely as a result of a reckless policy which did her harm without doing good to anyone else, and she was therefore left alone to support the cause of silver. ²²⁹ Cf. _The Report of the Indian Delegates to the International Monetary Conference of_ 1881, C. 3229 of 1882, p. 7; also Russell, op. cit., pp. 374–5.