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• Translator's Preface
• Section I.: Preliminary Observations.
• Chapter I.: The Question Stated
• Chapter II.: Preliminary Observations On the Rise of Prices Which Has Characterised the Last Few Years.
• Section II.: An Appeal to Some of the Fundamental Notions Upon the Nature and Characteristics of Money.
• Chapter I.: What We Ought to Understand By Value and Price.—twofold Definition of Money.—the Standard Or Fineness of Money.
• Chapter II.: Of the Meaning of the Word Standard.— the Metal-standard Is That From Which Is Derived the Monetary Unit.—the Two Ideas Standard and Monetary Unit Imply Each the Other.
• Chapter III.: Of the Character of Exchanges As Affected By the Invention of Money —how the Rise and Fall of the Precious Metals Are Manifested In the Course of Trade.—phenomena of the Rise and Fall In Commodities.
• Chapter IV.: On the Possibility of Conferring the Quality of Standard Upon Two Metals At Once.
• Chapter V: Of the Meaning of Certain Words Specially Applicable to Money and the Precious Metals.—price, Value, Premium, Dearness, Cheapness
• Section III.: Of the Present Production of Gold and Its Outlet.
• Chapter I.: Of the Increase In the Present Production of Gold As Compared With the Past —the Extended Coinage of Gold Which Has Followed.
• Chapter II.: Diminished Coinage of Silver In France—gold Is Already At a Discount In Comparison With Silver.
• Chapter III.: Extraordinary Exportation of Silver From the Civilised Countries of the Western World Towards India and China —to What Extent It Is Likely to Continue.
• Chapter IV.: France Serves Temporarily As a Parachute to Retard the Fall of Gold.
• Chapter V.: Whether the Extraordinary Production of Gold Ought to Be Considered As an Ephemeral Accident.—the Crushing of the Quartz Veins —mines In Siberia and Elsewhere.
• Section IV.: On the New Outlet That May Be Expected For the Production of the New Gold Mines, and Whether It Will Be In Proportion to the Extent of This Production.
• Chapter I.: Of the Outlet Afforded By Those Countries Which At Present Have Evidently an Insufficient Proportion of Metal In Their Currencies.
• Chapter II.: Of the Increase of Gold Money Which May Arise From the Development of Business, and the Increase of Population.—of Wear and Tear.—of Hoarding.—of Shipwrecks.
• Chapter III.: On the Employment Which Habits of Luxury May Offer to the Gold of the New Mines.
• Chapter IV.: Conclusion of the Preceding Chapters.—the Fall of Gold Very Probable, If Not Inevitable, In Relation to All Other Commodities.
• Section V.
• Chapters I. to V.: On the Part Assigned to Gold In the Monetary Legislation of France.
• Section VI.: Consequences of the Fall In the Value of Gold.
• Chapter I.: A General Distinction Between Those Private Incomes Which Will, and Those Which Will Not Be Affected. of a Certain Collective Loss Which the People of France Will Suffer.
• Chapter II.: Of the Sufferings and Difficulties Which Will Accompany the Transition.
• Chapter III.: On the Gain Which Would Result to Certain Classes of Persons, and to Society, From the Fall In Gold. the Saving to the State From the Payment of the Dividends On the Public Debt.
• Section VII.: Of the Measures to Be Taken to Avert the Evil Effects of the Fall of Gold.
• Chapter I.: Case of a State Like England, Where Gold Is the Standard, and Where There Is No Other Money But Gold.
• Chapter II.: Case of a State Such As France, Where There Is a Silver Standard, But Also a Gold Currency.
• Chapter III.: The Measure Here Recommended Is a Necessary Complement of the Law of Germinal, Year XI.
• Chapter IV.: On Some Inconveniences Inherent In the Combination, Respecting a Gold Currency, Recommended In This Work.
• Chapter V.: Of a Plan Recommended For Maintaining the Parallel Circulation of Silver and Gold.
• Chapter VI.: Of the Resolutions of a Commission Appointed By the Minister of Finance In Mdccclvii.
• Chapter VII.: Of Various Acts Which the Legislation of the Ancient Regime Upon Money Treated As Crimes, and With Regard to Which Some Persons of Our Day Propose to Establish Penalties. —selecting, and Melting; Trade In Coins; Exportation.
• Chapter VIII.: Of a Different Solution Which Has Been Recommended, and Which Would Consist In the Adoption of a Gold Standard.
• Chapter IX.: Appreciation of the System Which Consists In Adjourning Indefinitely the Legislative Solution.

SECTION V.

CHAPTERS I. to V.

on the part assigned to gold in the monetary legislation of france.

This section is devoted to an inquiry into the origin of the monetary laws of France, with a view to determine whether its legislators contemplated the existence of the double standard which is now causing a substitution of gold for silver in the currency of that country. The question is of the utmost importance to the French reader, and its solution Is probably the main object which the author has had in view; but as England stands in a totally different position, having a well-defined gold standard and legal tender, with an expressed legal demonetisation of silver for sums above forty shillings, the argument has no practical bearing upon the interests of this country, and I have obtained M. Chevalier's consent to omit the detailed translation of this section. I refer, therefore, to the original work for an able, elaborate, and, as I think, conclusive argument, showing that all the leading statesmen who took a part in framing the existing monetary law of France, agreed in the propriety of having one standard, of selecting silver for that purpose, and of making the franc the monetary unit, and that it has been only by the unforeseen and unexpected increase of gold, owing to the new discoveries, that the obvious and avowed intentions of the French legislators have been defeated.

The author relies especially on the Report of the Minister of Finance, Gaudin, to the Consular Government, which led to the Act of the 7th germinal, year 11 (28th March, 1803), and which definitively constituted the present monetary system of France. He gives the following extract:—”Whoever lends 200 francs shall never at any future time be repaid with less than one kilogramme of silver, which shall always be worth 200 francs, and shall never be worth more or less,”

The conclusion to which our author comes, after an elaborate appeal to facts and official documents, is that “the creditor of the State who is entitled to 100 francs a year, for example, has an inalienable, imprescriptible, and absolute right to receive a hundred times 5 grammes of silver, of the standard of 9-10ths fineness. He would be despoiled of his property if he were paid with a quantity of gold less than this equivalent, in the same way as if his claim were discharged with only 80 or 75 discs of silver, of the weight of 5 grammes, of the fineness of 9-10ths, instead of 100; or as if he were paid with 100 discs containing 4 grammes of fine silver only, instead of 4½,” and he finally makes the following appeal to the conscience and self-respect of France:—

“It is “true that there is no tribunal before which the State can be made to appear and hear itself condemned to pay the arrears of its dividends in silver to the public creditor; or, if gold has been resorted to, to pay a real equivalent of the quantity of silver which corresponds to the number of francs borne upon the dividend warrant. But, if no such jurisdiction has been established, it is because it has been supposed that the State would interpret with exactitude the law, both when it is against and when it is in favour of itself, and is it well that society should have to repent that it has adopted this hypothesis? In this case exactitude assumes another name—honesty. and even if there be no precise jurisdiction before which the State can be summoned by the instrumentality of a bailiff, and be compelled to make an appearance, there exists, nevertheless, a tribunal by which it can be judged, and whose decisions, though tardily given, and involving no material consequences, are yet not Jess formidable, and strike with terror even the most powerful. It is the tribunal of history, by which all governments know they must one day be judged with an impartiality which they sometimes anticipate with hope, but which ought always to be felt as a restraint. In dealing with a government which respects itself, it suffices to invoke this august tribunal, the last argument of a people, the supreme support of right, and the bulwark of the feeble against the strong, to confirm it in the sentiment of justice even when it shall find itself under the temptation to swerve from it.”