¹⁵⁵ Cf. H. S. Foxwell, “Bimetallism: Its Meaning and Aims,” in _The (Oxford) Economic Review_ (1893), Vol. III, p. 302. ¹⁵⁶ For these ratios, _see_ Appendix, Table B, to _A Colloquy on Currency_, by H. H. Gibbs. In support of this was cited the authority of Jevons, who said:¹⁵⁷ “Whenever different commodities are thus applicable to the same purposes their conditions of demand and exchange are not independent. Their mutual ratio of exchange cannot vary much for it will be closely defined by the ratio of their utilities. Beef and mutton differ so slightly that people eat them almost indifferently. But the wholesale price of mutton, on an average, exceeds that of beef in the ratio of 9 to 8, and we must therefore conclude that people generally esteem mutton more than beef in this proportion, otherwise they would not buy the dear meat. … So long as the equation of utility holds true, the ratio of exchange between mutton and beef will not diverge from that of 8 to 9. If the supply of beef falls off people will not pay a higher price for it, but will eat more mutton; and if the supply of mutton falls off, they will eat more beef. … We must, in fact, treat beef and mutton as one commodity of two different strengths—just as gold at 18 carats and gold at 20 carats are hardly considered as two but rather as one commodity, of which twenty parts of one are equivalent to eighteen of the other. “It is upon this principle that we must explain, in harmony with Cairnes’ views, the extraordinary permanence of the ratio of exchange of gold and silver, which from the commencement of the eighteenth century up to recent years never diverged much from 15 to 1. That this fixedness of ratio did not depend entirely upon the amount or cost of production is proved by the very slight effect of the Australian and Californian gold discoveries, which never raised the gold price of silver more than about 4⅔ per cent., and failed to have more than a permanent effect of 1½ per cent. This permanence of relative values may have been partially due to the fact that gold and silver can be employed for [pg 83] exactly the same purposes, but that the superior brilliancy of gold occasions it to be preferred, unless it be about 15 or 15½ times as costly as silver. Much more probably, however, the explanation of the fact is to be found in the fixed ratio of 15½ to 1, according to which these metals are exchanged in the currency of France and some other continental countries. The French Currency Law of the year XI established an artificial¹⁵⁸ equation— Utility of gold = 15½ × utility of silver