Balfour On Silver

LosDON, April 1. - Tho anuual meeting of tliu Birnetnllic league waa held ut thu Mansión House, the official rcsidcuce of tlie lord mayor of Lundou. Sir Joseph Dimedaie presidod. Among thpse present; wro Lord treorge HamilCon, theduke of Fife umi .ir Uonald H. McFórlane and Charles H. Vincent, members of the house of ooiumons. Bc. Hou. A. J. Bnlfour, Conservativa leadur in the house of commons, made a speech in favor of a doublé standard. He s;ud tliat the belief in biinctnllism was growing, nol only in Londou and elêewhere Ui Great Brltaln, but thiMuhuut the civilizad World. One great chungo was noticeable. It was soldom now assertad that bimetalllsm was I intrinsicaJly Impoggible. t'ormerly a 1 metallist was regardod as a dangorous faddlst. Au Allegcfl lrrulutublo Faut. Lcouomists who placed va) ue on the lessons of experienoc haü bt-fore them the irrefutable tact that whilethe Latin nations maintainod the biiuetaüic system the par of eichange of gold ;ind silver was preserved for the wuole world, deapite wars, industrial revolutions, aud discoveries of the preciou3 metala, iíoine persons admittod that monouiotalüsm ia a large portion of the world had depreciated prices aud put a bound on impórts. Thus, for instanoe, (rroui Britatn bought from India aud other oountries wheat at a price bülow its legitímate valué, aud theso 1 sons deciari-d that this was au advantago to the conburners and therfore benofitud the niass ot the coummnity. Mipu'nmrv of ioiiloit iale. Balfour declurcd, however, that he was couvinoed that nobody in thu city was so fooli.ii ss to suppose th;iD tlie interests of Grcat' Britain benetltted generaüy by an unliinited fall of prioes, nor that any large jody of city men was so unscrupulous as to desire that the debts owed thom by 'oreign natious should be artificlally augmented by a change in the value of ;he currency in whicli thcy were paid. Choers. ] Another argumout was that ho banking supreraacy of London would je thrcatened with a cuirenci' chango, but 10 niono-metallist was ever able to ex)lan how. He contended that London, is tho financial ixjntreof the world, would jain rather than loge by anything plac lig the currency cf the world on a sounder basis. I liivd Argument leclared Absurd. Tlio third argument was vury absurd. Tli s was that a chango would deprecíate íi-.u:. and therefore persons having dopos is in banks puyable in gold would wini.lraw tliem instautly. The bange thi'i aeiied thus to cause such a commercial crisis as the world had ncversoeu. This argument was supported by (iladstone and Harcourt. There appeured to üalíour no grouuds to suppose Chat the peopla would do anything so inordinutely silly as towithdraw their deposits beoauSe t he world's currency was tfoing to bu puton a stable basis. lDistü That IC Ia Nut "Wel! Eootigh." The fourth and strongost argument was ''let well enough aloae," but biuietallists aakod was it well cnough? Pooplo talkod about tha excellence of the British systom, but they üad that although the gold standard obtained in, Groat Britain silver is the currency of Hong Kong and the straits settlements, whiie in India debts are paid in something which is neither silver nor gold, but the strangest product of ïnono-metallic ingenuity the world has ever seon, as arbitrary as any torcud paper curiency und as expenslve as any metallic currency the world had ever board of. Change of MyMem Iiuperat'Vrly Kquirv!. Sonic alteración of tln.s syítem was impcrutively required. Ii Jttribons turuud to the world at lorge they wouid iind the caso mucli stronger. To consider home Intereses alone in {raming a currency, whilo Groat Britain was comiected with foreign countries by every commercial tic, was a violation of the compon sense of every practicable business man. Whekl the country depended for its very bread on foreign nations, and if it were cut off could not live a day, it was the keight of folly to attempt isolation respecking the ourrehcy mediam.