The Present Monetary Situation

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1896 Excerpt: ... TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. The address here translated gives a brief summary of the conclusions of a recognized authority on monetary questions on the larger and more general aspects of the silver situation. In the original, the chapters are not numerically designated, but appear under the following heads: Der gegenw'drtige Stand der Wahrungsfrage. Vortrag gehalten in der Gehe-Stiftung zu Dresden am 16. Februar fSpj. Anhang. Nachwort. A simple numerical designation of those different parts is used in the translation, with sub-titles indicating the topics taken up. The address which forms the first and main part of the publication was delivered at Dresden in February, 1895, and refers to the situation as it then stood. The changes since that date have been slight, and in no way affect the substance of the arguments. In a few places brief notes have been added, explaining the text, or bringing figures more nearly to date. While some of the matter in the later parts is of a controversial nature, and refers more especially to the 217 mode in which Professor Lexis gradually reached his present views, the whole is believed to be of interest to American readers, and is accordingly reproduced without abridgement. JOHN CUMMINGS. THE PRESENT MONETARY SITUATION. THE PRESENT MONETARY SITUATION. Ill 1871 Germany took the first step toward the reform of her currency system--a reform at that time so necessary as to be unavoidable--and with the law of July 9, 1873, she brought the great work through to a provisional conclusion. Who could think, however, in that period of hope and public felicitation over the creation of the German Empire that the work of reform would rest under this law, and that it would remain after the lapse of more than two decades as incomplete to-day as t...