The ball once set rolling, the work of demonetizing silver began to grow apace. First in the field was Germany. Having vanquished France in the war of 1870, she utilized the war indemnity in the reform of her chaotic currency¹⁴² by hastening to adopt a gold currency for the United Empire of Germany. The law of December 4, 1871, authorized the change, with the mark as the unit of currency. Silver was demonetized by this enactment; but the existing silver coins continued to be legal tender, though their further coinage was stopped, along with the new gold coins at the legal ratio of 15½ to 1. This full legal-tender power of the silver coins was taken away from them by the law of June 9, 1873, which reduced them to the position of a subsidiary currency.¹⁴³ This policy was immediately copied by other [pg 74] countries of Germanic culture.¹⁴⁴ In 1872 Norway, Sweden, and Denmark formed a Scandinavian Monetary Union, analogous to the Latin Monetary Union, by which they agreed to demonetize silver as was done by Germany. This treaty, which established a gold standard and reduced the existing silver currency to a subsidiary status, was ratified by Sweden and Denmark in 1873 and by Norway in 1875. Holland also followed the same course. Till 1872 she had a pure silver standard. In that year she closed her Mint to the free coinage of silver, although the old silver money continued to be legal tender to any amount. In 1875 she went a step further and opened her Mints to the free coinage of gold. Her policy differed from that of the Germanic countries in that she only suspended the free coinage of silver, while the latter had demonetized it. Even the Latin Union was unable to resist this tide against silver. As a consequence of this exclusion of silver, the Latin Union, enlarged as it was by additional members, naturally desired to take precautionary measures against being flooded by the influx of this depreciated silver. Nor was this fear unfounded, for the silver tendered for coinage at the Belgian Mint in 1873 was three times greater than what was tendered in 1871. Rather than be embarrassed, Belgium, by the law of December 8, 1873, suspended the free coinage of her silver five-franc pieces. This action of Belgium forced the hands of the other members of the Union to adopt similar measures. The delegates of the Union met in Paris in January, 1874, and ¹⁴² For a history of the movement for the unification of German currency prior to 1870, cf. H. P. Willis, “The Vienna Monetary Treaty of 1857,” in the _Journal of Political Economy_, Vol. IV, p. 187 _et seq_. ¹⁴³ For the text of the Laws, _see_ Appendix to _History of Bimetallism_, by Prof. J. L. Laughlin, New York, 1886, ¹⁴⁴ Cf. _Report of the Committee on the Depreciation of Silver_, 1876, p. xxix.