THE SCRAMBLE FOR GOLD

II

'We have gold, we can afford gold, and therefore we ought to adhere to gold." The Times, August 4, 1893 (leading article on Mr. Balfour's speech at the Mansion House).

In the Bi-metallic Controversy there are some points which would be accepted on both sides and others which have not perhaps been brought into sufficient prominence.

It would be conceded that a gold standard and gold currency are of ideal perfection if they could be adopted by all commercial nations : this is impossible.

No two nations of the world have now the same standard of currency.

The standard of England is gold, and England is the only nation having an absolute gold standard: the system of France and of the United States, although differing greatly from each other, may both be called isolated bi-metallism; the standard of India is a silver rupee, which is legal tender at a fictitious value; China is on an absolute silver basis, as England is on an absolute gold basis. For purposes of internal trade one standard is practically as good as another; it is only when payments for external trade have to be made that difficulties arise.

The difficulties of international trade, whether in commodities or in securities, and the difficulty of negotiating bills of exchange in every part of the world are now great and at times insurmountable.

During the last few weeks gold has been at a premium in New York, and contracts were made subject to shipment from London: in order to keep the withdrawals of gold from the Bank of England within as small a compass as possible, bankers and exchange dealers refused profitable and legitimate business.

Such refusal is almost equivalent to a premium on gold in London, but apart from this the price of bar gold in the open market is above the English Mint price, and therefore at a premium.1

1 October 1893.

The banker, as filling a position of primary responsibility, refuses business which would be gladly accepted if it did not involve shipment of gold, and the legitimate profit is lost to him as well as to any broker or agent who may happen to be employed: the transactions in London are restricted in order to maintain a gold balance.

The commercial situation has been growing worse and worse since 1873, and most persons having an interest in the subject would be glad to return to the position existing before that date, when England maintained a gold standard and currency, but had the advantage of the bimetallic union of other nations..

Notwithstanding the advantages of this position, no English Government has made any effort to return to it.

After accepting the invitation to the Brussels Conference, the proceedings were brought to an abrupt end by the declaration, by one of the English Commissioners, of his profession of faith.' 'Our faith,' said Sir Rivers Wilson, is that of the school of monometallism, pure and simple. We do not admit that any other system than the single gold standard would be applicable in our country.

After this statement it became useless to discuss whether it might be possible for this country, without giving up the gold standard, to make such concessions both at home and in India as might encourage the formation of a bimetallic agreement on the part of other nations.

In some future conference the various proposals to increase the use of silver should at all events be discussed. Although the simple. bimetallic agreement of free coinage of both metals may be open to objections, the proposal of a ratio with a seignorage to be fixed by international agreement and varied as from time to time may be found necessary has not yet been admitted for discussion.

There has been no chance even to propose an international gold piece with free coinage and an international silver piece to be legal tender up to 201. or 500 francs or 100 dollars.

The importance of the connection between the difficulties of international trade arising from various standards of currency and protective duties has perhaps not received sufficient attention.

No nation can continue purchases abroad and pay gold for them. It is only natural, therefore, that every nation endeavours to prevent by high import duties all transactions involving payment beyond its own borders.

The gold standard of England tends to our isolation in the matter of foreign trade.

The balance of foreign trade being against us, we should be called upon to export gold if it were not that we hold securities of foreign nations on which we have to receive interest. When it is stated that we can afford gold, it is because of the interest we receive on

securities: the wealth of England is in its foreign securities: the poverty of England is in its adverse trade balance for articles of necessity. Other nations impose high import duties against us in order to discourage their peoples from purchases abroad, and in order to keep the balance of trade in their own favour. They cannot afford to pay interest on securities and at the same time pay for commodities bought abroad.

The yearly excess of payments due by England for imports against receipts for exports may be taken at about 120,000,000l., of which one-half is due to the United States. In the case of the United States this adverse balance is not paid in gold, but is set against interest and dividend payments due to English investors in United States securities and in shipping. The return from these securities is rapidly diminishing, but the adverse trade balance continues. The most important field for investment of English money has been America: the reasonable expectation that with the increasing growth of the country there would be a corresponding return to the holders of securities has not been realised. The chief cause of this disappointment has been the continued fall in freight rates: the continued fall in the value of corn and wheat has rendered low rates absolutely necessary: the fall in wheat is owing to the competition of India as an exporter: the competition of India dates from the fall in silver, until the export of wheat from India is now three-sevenths of the export of wheat from America. India fixes the market price, which falls lower and lower with the fall in silver.

When the return of interest from securities fails to equal our adverse trade balance, we may be perhaps more ready to discuss an international currency agreement. It is to be remembered that English investments are not largely in such safe securities as United States Government bonds, but in securities which are of the nature of enterprises.

'We have gold, we can afford gold, and therefore ought to adhere to gold.' This is the English boast; but if the English isolated gold policy ruins English debtors, and the adverse trade balance remains, how long shall we be able to keep our gold balance?

J. P. HESELTINE.

CHATS WITH JANE CLERMONT

(CONCLUDED)

THE subject-matter dealt with in these conversations must, of course, be limited by the promise of which I made mention in my previous article-to publish only information relating to certain things which were specified at the time. Many years have yet to pass ere I may be enabled to write in full of the life of Madame Clermont. Ten years from her decease, whenever that might take place, was, as I have already said, stipulated upon before she would allow me to publish anything relating to her, and even that was made dependent on the death meantime of Sir Percy Shelley, a death which has only comparatively recently occurred; thirty years being the time I promised to wait before publishing clearly specified matter, intensely interesting, but of a nature which I must not even hint at here.

Before proceeding further, I have some words to say relating to questions raised by reviewers of my first article, questions which the courtesy and appreciation with which I have been treated impose upon me the obligation of answering.

First, the question of my orthography as regards the lady's name. This has already been answered by me in the Times, and the proof of the accuracy of my spelling of the name Clermont can be seen by a glance at the British Museum catalogue.

I must here, however, admit two little slips of my own. One is the passage in the letter referred to, where I speak of the profusion of Christian names which the lady was wont to delight in, being shown in the letter to Byron. There I am wrong. The proof of her proneness to romantic nomenclature is to be found in another and later document than the letter to Byron. In the later document she signs herself Clara Mary Constantia Jane Clairmont, the Constantia being, of course, a remembrance of the celebrated poem To Constantia Singing. In the letter to Byron she signs herself simply Claire, the first syllable of her surname spelt as some of my critics would have it, and both of these facts decidedly tend to bear out my suggestion that she preferred the perhaps more romantic Clairmont to Clermont. But we find the name spelt variously, as Clairmont, Clermont, Charlemont, Clairemont, and Claremont. At the time I knew her she used to prefer to be styled

Clara rather than Claire. Clearly a most wayward and romantic young lady, and she preserved many of her youthful characteristics to the last, which to a great extent constituted her charm. One can well understand her dislike in youth to the homely nomenclature of Mary Jane, and it is under these names she figures in Shelley's will. She herself evidently preferred them when washed down' by a profusion of more romantic designations.

Secondly, where I say in my article 'early eighties 'I should say 'late seventies,' for Miss Clermont died in 1879. The slip was a very natural one, for I chanced to make the same journey from the southwest of France to Florence three times in a few years, and, as I state in my letter to the Times, I had no idea of writing on the subject. The time of waiting seemed so interminable that I had almost grown to forget about the incident, and my memory as to dates had become a little hazy. Moreover, the article was written under conditions of place which debarred me from full access to the notes I made at the time.

And now let me set at rest a matter as to which there has been a good deal of dispute-namely, Miss Clermont's age when she first met Byron. Miss Clermont was born in 1798, consequently, when she met Byron in 1815, she was seventeen. I am quite aware that in saying she met Byron in 1815 I am exposing myself to the assaults of various Byronian writers who maintain that the Clermont connection did not take place until after the cessation of intercourse with Lady Byron; but they are wrong. By the way, I think it is as well to point out here a slight error made by Mr. Garnett, the able and courteous keeper of printed documents in the British Museum, in his short notice of Miss Clermont. As one of my reviewers has well said, nearly everyone who has written on this subject has fallen into some error of chronology. Mr. Garnett is perfectly correct as to the date of the lady's birth, but he speaks of her later on as nearly two-andtwenty in 1816. I asked Mr. Garnett personally for an explanation of this, and he told me he had in the first instance the idea that she was born in the same year as Edward Williams, who met his death with Shelley. But even then Mr. Garnett would have been wrong as to Miss Clermont's age in 1816, for Edward Williams was born in 1792—the year, by a strange coincidence, of both Shelley's and Trelawney's births. Trelawney himself relates this in his Reminiscences of Byron and Shelley, in the course of a conversation taking place between Shelley, Williams, and himself. Miss Clermont, therefore, had Mr. Garnett been correct in his first belief as to the date of her birth, would have been twenty-four and not twenty-two in 1816, when, according to Mr. Garnett and others, she first met Byron—a view which I have already said I hold (in fact, I know) to be erroneous, for Miss Clermont was really a cause of Byron's divorce ; but that leads to matters upon which I am forbidden to treat for years to