THE WORLD’S GOLD.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1660, 16 June 1879, Page 3

THE WORLD’S GOLD.

The formidable movement of New York bankers in the interest of the demonetization of silver leads (says a Home contemporary) to a new discussion of the necessity or uselessness of a double standard, or, in other words, the employment of both gold and silver as the basis of money circulation. If an article of intrinsic value be vital to the stability of our currency to prevent injurious fluctuation, it is desirable that the recognised standards shall exist in a quantity as nearly commensurate as possible with the bulk of the circulating medium. The Ural Mountains, Australia, and the United States are the most productive sources of gold supply, the first yielding 20,000,000d01. annually, the second 37,000,000d01, and the third 35,000,000d01. Prior to the discovery of the rich mines of the Unifed States the total production was only G8,000,000d01. per annum. The fever of gold-hunting, which was excited by the finding of the great mines of the Pacific coast, rapidly increased the yearly production until, in 1850, it reached over 120,000,000 dollars, and five or six years later gold bullion was mined to the extend of the enormous sum of nearly 185,000,000 dol. This was the largest yield of any one year, and since production has gradually fallen away, and seems to have finally reached an equilibrium of about 100,000,000d0l per annum, nearly all of which is found in the three regions named. Now, if this represented the actual yearly increase in _ the volume of gold which is used as the basis of the currency of gold-using countries, it might serve, unassisted, as a standard. But the fact is, this production does little more than supply the place of that which disappears from cir culation as money annually by loss and wear, or metamorphosis into articles of commerce. A few years ago some English statistician, after a careful investigation, estimated the yearly loss of gold coin to the British Treasury as at least £5,000,000 sterling, and, calculating from this basis, the loss to the world must amount to nearly the total production, and therefore little addition to the bulk of gold in the treasuries of all nations can be expected. It is true that new mines may bo found. It is not to be supposed that there are no undiscovered regions rich with auriferous deposits. But against this there are the uncertainties of discovery with an almost certain decrease of the present production. That there has been a large increase of the stock on hand during the past quarter of a century cannot bo denied, but this is due principally to the remarkable discoveries in the United States, which in a few years doubled the store. Thirty years ago the entire stock of gold coin was only a little more than 3,000,000,000d01. At present is is 705,500,000,000d01., but the increase was made during a few years, and the past decade has added little to the stock. Pertinent to this statement is the vast increase in population and business in those countries which use gold as a standard. The proportion of gold in store at this time is much smaller in proportion to the wealth of the country than it was a quarter of a century ago, and the ratio is steadily decreasing. A greater quantity of the metal is used in the domain of art than formerly. Its employment as money is being extended to new fields in company with expanding trade, and underlying the whole question is the self-evident fact that production itself i s subject to the chances of dis-

covery. It is, therefore, made plainly apparent that gold alone does not and will not be adequate to supply the demand for precious metals as money, and unless some new financial system shall be discovered which is still unknown to any enlightened philosopher on national economy, by which money of intrinsic worth may be dispensed with altogether, the employment of some other metals as an assistant to gold seems imperative.