“agreed to a treaty supplementary to that originally framed in 1865, and determined on withdrawing from individuals the full power of free coinage by limiting to a moderate sum the silver five-franc pieces which should be coined by each State of the Union during the year 1874.”¹⁴⁵ ¹⁴⁵ Laughlin, op. cit., p. 155. The respective quotas fixed for 1874 were slightly increased [pg 75] in 1875, but were reduced in 1876.¹⁴⁶ But the actual coinage did not even reach these small quotas. So greatly was the Union perturbed by the silver situation that during 1877 the coinage of silver five-franc pieces was, with the exception of Italy,¹⁴⁷ entirely suspended. This action was, however, only a preliminary to the Treaty of November 5, 1878, by which the Latin Union agreed to close its Mints to the free coinage of silver till further action. Though at first _sine die_, the closure proved in the end perpetual.¹⁴⁸ Simultaneously with the precautionary measures of the Latin Union, Russia suspended, in 1876, the free coinage of silver except to such an amount as was necessary for the purposes of her trade with China,¹⁴⁹ and the Imperial Decree of November 22, 1878, directed that all customs duties above 5 roubles and 15 copecks should be payable in gold.¹⁵⁰ Austria in like manner suspended the free coinage of silver in 1879.¹⁵¹ ¹⁴⁶ The quotas fixed at the Conferences for the several members of the Union were:— _In Millions of Francs._ ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 1874. 1875. 1876. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── France 60 75 54 Belgium 12 50 36 Italy 40 15 10 Switzerland 8 10 7 Greece — — 3 ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ 120 150 110 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── In 1874 Italy was allotted an extra 20 million francs. _Ibid_., p. 155. ¹⁴⁷ She was allowed to coin 10 millions of them. ¹⁴⁸ _Ibid_., p. 158. ¹⁴⁹ _Report of the Directors of the Mint_, Washington, 1893, p. 23. ¹⁵⁰ Cf. P. Willis, “Monetary Reform in Russia,” in the _Journal of Political Economy_, Vol. V, p. 291. ¹⁵¹ Cf. F. Wieser, “Resumption of Specie Payment in Austria-Hungary,” in _Journal of Political Economy_, Vol. I, pp. 380–7.