Mr. Lowe has endeavoured to explain to some electors of
Green- wich, through a memorandum written for Mr. Gladstone, why the 1\1int cannot bind itself to coin all the silver sent to it. He says if it (lid, the persons bringing silver would make a profit equal to the whole value of the alloy, namely, about 10 per cent. (exactly Os. on ,60s. 61), and so much silver would be brought that the silver ,coinage "would exceed the wants of the community ;" that the value of the sovereign as expressed in silver would be raised, and that prices would be artificially inflated. The Mint therefore only coins for the Bank, and the Bank only wants it for the country bankers. This reply would be unanswerable if silver were legal tender to any amount, but being a legal tender only for forty- :shillings, we cannot see what Mr. Lowe is afraid of. Nobody would ask for silver coin which he could not pay his debts with, particularly if, as Mr. Lowe fears, there occurred an appreciation of gold. If gold is worth more than shillings, and I am not bound to take shillings, why should I take them ? For the pleasure of carrying away extra weight ?
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