Tire over-issue of paper currency in France has been so
great that now, when confidence is returning, gold is at a premium of something not much under 2 per cent.,—tnore exactly, between 17 and 18 per thousand. While the discredit lasted so far that no one trusted even the banks when he could help it, the deprecia- tion was not observable; but now that the notes are being deposited with the banks, while business is so dull that a less than average currency would probably answer the purposes of Franco, and our high rate of discount is creating a demand for gold for exportation hither, the superfluity of the paper currency is showing itself some- what suddenly. We should have thought that in a country where cheques,—one of our most powerful instruments of exchange,— are so little used as in France, a very large paper currency would have floated without any sign of excess ; and it perhaps might have been so, had not any depressing commercial influence coin- cided with the moderate expansion of paper. As it is, however, M. Thiers will have amongst his other onerous duties to deliberate on the best way of returning as soon as possible to cash payments in France.
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