Good Prospects For Silver

Last week an international bimetallic conference was held in London, under the auspices of the Bimetallic League. Among the delegates were such financiers of world-wide reputation as the Kight Hon. W. Lidderdale, exgovernor of the Bank of England; A. J. Balfour, conservative leader of the house of commons; Dr. Arendt, member of the Prussian diet; Henri Cernuschi, of Paris; and Mr. Vanderberg, president of the Bank of the Netherlands. There were four hundred delegates present. That such a conference, numbering among its delegates some of the ablest statesmen and financiers of Europe, all earnest advocates of bimetallism should meet at this time to consider the question of the rehabitation of silver, is most significant. The speeches and letters read were not less so. The address of Mr. Balfour was most surprising, coming from so able and prominent a representative of England, the country whose influence has been most powerful heretofore in preventing any international agreement in the work of rehabilitating silver. He said that Great Britain "ought to enter into an agreement with the countries of the world for a bimetallic joint Standard. Great is the responsibility of those who keep England in stupid, selfish isolation on this great question." Dr. Arendt said that bimetallism was making progress in Germany, and declared that should another international conference be held now the result would be very different from the result of the Brussel's meeting. A letter was also read from M. Magnin, governor of the Bank of France, in the course of which he said: "The silver question imposes itself more every day upoa financiers The whole world requires its solution in its general interest. lama resolute tisan of the rehabilitation of silver." This agitation in Europe, for the rehabilitation of silver, has arisen since the repeal of the purchase clause of the Sherman act and there is but little doubt but that that repeal has had much to do with the hopeful situation there today. So long as we were willing to try the experiment of bimetallism alone and were willing to take the discarded silver of Europe and give our gold for it, we could not hope to exert much influence in favor of international action. By the repeal of the purchase clause of the Sherman act, however, the countries of Europe have been made to feel that they have something at stake in the matter of maintaining a stable relation between the two rnetals They are coming to understand that the divergence between the two metáis is due, in a greater or less degree, to the discarding of silver as a money metal. The situation is a hopeful one, therefore, and if the leven continúes to work, the time is probably not dsstant when there may be an international agreement whereby the parity of the two metáis will be fixed and maintained on a sound and stable basis.