la loi du 5 Août 1876, les dates des échéances s'échelonnaient jusqu'au 13 Décembre 1878.
This letter gave me, in part, the infomation which I required, but not the whole of it. I wished to know not only what restriction was placed on the quantity of Silver to be coined, but the successive due-dates that had been fixed in 1873 f or the Mint certificates. Restrictions of quantity would impede the immediate turning one's bullion into money (the rule being, I suppose, 'first come, first served') and thus would tend of course to lower the price of bullion. But they are not precisely the same as the postponement of the due-dates of the Mint certificates (échéances des bons de monnaie) though the latter would be a natural concomitant of the former.
We know that the law of the French Mint is analogous to our law (of 1844).[1] Here we receive through the Bank of England vouchers called Bank Notes for the gold brought in, less an allowance representing the interest which would be lost in waiting one's turn at the Mint, and the brokerage which one would have to pay. In France one receives a certificate called a bon de monnaie for the full coin value of the specie brought in, less Mint charges, but payable in coin, normally ten days from the date of import. This bon de monnaie was paid into one's bankers, and was, of course, discountable, the discount at 3 per cent. for ten days amounting to francs ·005215 per ounce, and increasing as the échéances (due-dates) were postponed.
It appeared from M. Sudre's letter that in July 1874 the échéances had already been carried to April 1875,—that is to say, with a nine months' delay. This cannot have been the first of such measures; and what I especially desired to know was, in what month and year the échéances of the bon de monnaie were
- ↑ A passage in a leading article of the Times of 13th August, in describing what the writer thinks are the mischievous follies of the Silver Bill of the United States Congress, which came into operation on that day, gives unconsciously, but with absolute accuracy, the bearing of the Act of 1844, except that the folly of the United States is limited to the purchase of 4,500,000 ounces a month, while our folly, if folly it be, imposes no limits on itself. His words are:—
'These are the principal provisions of this remarkable Act, which compels the United States Government to buy a certain commodity, Silver, and hold it, issuing in the meantime to the sellers Warrants which the public are compelled to receive as money.'
Mutatis mutandis they would run thus:—
'These are the principal provisions of this remarkable Act [of 1844] which compels the English Government, through the Bank of England, to buy a certain commodity, Gold, and hold it, issuing in the meantime to the sellers Warrants [Notes] which the public are compelled to receive as money.'
