GOLD AND SILVER PLATE.
frIIIE fates and the laws are alike just now against the
manufacturers of Plate. The trade is declining, partly from a change in manners and partly from the diminution in the spare wealth of the rich, yet it is loaded down with restrictions such as in our day embarrass no other manufacture. The temporary cause of decline is of course the amount of the losses recently sustained by the well:to-do classes, the goldsmiths suffering in times of pressure almost as severely as the hatters—who of all tradesmen suffer first—and quite as severely as the jobmasters, a goldsmith's stock "eating its head off " in loss of interest almost as rapidly as that of a livery-stable keeper. There are, how- ever, permanent causes also at work against the goldsmith. The habit of accumulating plate as a useful form of property, very easy to turn into cash and not difficult to protect from spoliation, has entirely passed away. Consols are much safer and yield interest, and although there is strong reason to believe that jewels are still accumulated by men who think that under certain circum- stances they might prove a family resource, the purchasers of blate are rarely impelled by the idea thrit plate is an unusually
saleable article. If buyers on any scale, they are anxious and inquisitive about its saleable value, but they do not buy with any definite idea of selling. Huge pieces of silver plate, such as fonts, baths, and vases, are seldom made now,while an article of gold worth £2,000 by weight alone would scarcely be manufactured except for an Eastern Prince. The thieves would be after it for years. No English millionaire will ever put up golden gates like those of the Winter Palace near Pekin, which Count Montauban missed, being deceived by a coat of paint ; and no English child will ever again be baptised with Jordan water in a font of solid gold. The rich do not like losing hundreds a year in interest for the pleasure of possessing particularly dangerous property, and though gold services are still made and are excessively costly, their weight is made up chiefly of silver gilt. On the other hand, the steady demand of the poor or comparatively poor for plate has died away under the influence of science. Time was when every householder desired a few silver spoons, but good electro-plating is now so good, the cost is so much less, and the risk so much diminished, that the demand for the pure metal among the lower middle-class threatens to become infinitesimal, and were it not for a certain feeling of caste pride, which is offended by the use of a "fictitious" metal, might become wholly extinct. The total manufacture of plate has, we are told, within a few years de- creased one-fourth, and the tendency of the world is against its rapid revival. There is a great fancy for artistic work, and a decided taste for artistic work in durable materials, but modern work, either in gold or silver, is not very good, first-class artists declining to devote themselves to a branch of art which somehow, even when successfully pursued, yields them little general reputa- tion. There is, so far as we know, no Benvenuto Cellini alive, certainly not one who is known, and it would be easier to obtain really " wonderful " work,—i.e., work with manifest genius in it —in iron than in gold.
Nevertheless the trade is heavily burdened both with taxes and restrictions, most of them useless, but supported alike by tradition and by the prejudices of the people. The duty on silver plate, for example, is 1s. Gd. an ounce, or more than thirty per cent. on the cost price of bar silver, the heaviest tax levied on any raw material whatever, and unless silver plate is regarded as an in- jurious luxury, economically indefensible. The duty on gold plate is lighter, but is still nearly twenty per cent. on the value of the metal, while both duties are levied in a way almost incon- ceivably annoying to the manufacturer. The Legislature has never been able to rid itself of a notion that because gold and silver are the metals used in making the coinage, therefore the purity of the gold and silver used in ware should be guarded by exceptional laws, and though it has abandoned the old cruel de- vices of guardianship, it still insists on precautions which are not
taken in the case of any other trade, and which are in part at least indefensible on any principle whatever. By the law of 1854, as quoted in Mr. Streeter's recent book on ' Gold,"—a curious little tractate, written by a German, in favour of free- trade in plate, which, nevertheless, Mr. Streeter himself does not favour,-4, All gold and silver ware manufactured in the United Kingdom is required to be tested and stamped ; the cost of
stamping amounting to 17s. per ounce for gold-ware, and 1s. Gd.
per ounce for silver ; and the duty is payable at the place of test- ing. At the present time, five legal standards exist for gold-ware, —22,18, 15, 12, 9-carat gold. For silver-ware, there are two,- 11 oz. JO dwts. and 11 oz. 2 dwts." The necessity for stamping, of course, embarrasses the trade, while the cost of the process seriously affects it, and yet the protection afforded to the public, especially in the case of gold, is almost entirely illusory, or rather the public is deceived by the aid of the Legislature. The majority of buyers do not understand the Hall-marks, which are arranged on a system useful enough as regards the trade, but utterly preposterous as regards the public. We take a short and we believe accurate description of them from the latest edition of " Chambers's Encyclopaedia " :—
" MUD symbols are-1. The maker's own mark or initials. 2. The standard or assay mark ; viz., for gold, a crown, and figures denoting the number of carats fine. This means that pure gold is reckoned at 24 carats, and every part of alloy added reduces that standard number; so that if a piece of gold-plate or jewellery is marked with a crown and 18, it indicates that it consists of 18 parts of pure gold and 6 parts of some other metal alloyed with it. Gold of eight carats is now legal, but as it is marked by the Assay Office there can be no deception if the public understand the plate-marks. If not, they may pay for pure gold, relying upon the hall-mark, when in reality they only receive a third part gold. For Silver—England, a lion passant ; Ireland, a harp crowned; Edinburgh, a thistle ; Glasgow, a lion rampant. 8. The hall-mark of the district office—London, a leopard's head crowned ; York, three lions and a cross; Exeter, a castle with two wings; Chester, three wheat-sheaves or a dagger; Newcastle, three acidities ; Birmingham, an anchor; Sheffield, a crown ; Edinburgh, a castle and lion ; Glasgow, a tree, salmon, and ring; Dublin, the figure of Hibernia. 4. The duty-mark, indicating the payment of duty, viz., the head of the reigning sovereign. 15. The date-mark. Each office has its alpha- betical mark, indicating the date of the stamp. In London the assay year commences on May 30, and the date of the current year is indi- cated by one of the first twenty letters of the alphabet used in regular succession ; thus the Goldsmiths' Company of London have used the following marks :—From 171(1-1755, Roman capital letters ; 1756-1775, Roman small letters'; 1776-1795, Old English letters; 1796-1815, Roman capital letters A toll; 1816-1835, small Roman lettere a to u; 1836-1855, Old English letters a to f ; 1856-1875, small black letters a to U. Thus, the letter E, a lion, an anchor, the Queen's head, and the letter 0 would represent the mark on Elkington's plate, made in the year 1874."
The public knows nothing of those marks, which are necessarily made as small as possible, and often wilfully obscured with powder, and when told that the gold has a Hall-mark, think either that they are buying pure gold worth £8 17s. 6d. an ounce, which is practically impossible, pure gold being too soft to work, or at all events, jewellers' gold, that is, 18-carat gold, worth exactly one-fourth less than standard, or £2 18s. 1d. an ounce. The public are in consequence habitually deceived, particularly in gold chains, which are stamped at intervals only, and buy gold worth scarcely half the amount they think it must always be saleable at. Moreover, the difficulty of bringing even direct fraud home to the dealer is very great, he always pleading that he was deceived by the manufacturer, who, again, pleads that he deceived nobody, and could not deceive his purchaser, the latter being an expert. If the law fixed, as Mr.
Streeter wishes, a single standard, namely, eighteen carats, and compelled the disuse of the word "gold " for any form of the metal still further alloyed, the present system would work fairly well ; but this is practically impossible, and would destroy most im- portant and unobjectionable industries. Gold even as low in quality as of nine carats has many special uses, and all the public is entitled to insist on is that it shall know, and know past all question, what quality the seller is offering to the buyer. Herr von Studnitz says it is not entitled to this, but should protect itself as it beet can, as it does in the case of other valuable articles, diamonds, for example, or fine china, or pictures, but this is a mistake both in ethics and in prudential economy. The Legisla- ture would compel honesty in all departments, if it could, and only draws back before the proved impossibility of ensuring a standard for articles whose value is, to a great extent, matter of opinion among experts, and irreducible to any scientific test or explanation. Nobody can tell by any final test available for the benefit of the ignorant that a picture or a Satsuma vase is
perfect, and though there are tests for gems, they aro so little
purchased by the ignorant that the Legislature wisely leaves them without protection, except from the ordinary law against obtaining money by false pretences. Gold and silver, however, being universally desired, and in some sort universally needed, offering immense temptation to fraud, and requiring scientific skill to ascertain their precise value, demand special protec- tion, and we think, might easily obtain it from the civil law. Why not leave the manufacturer or vendor to deal in any gold he liked, provided he stamps into each article the number of carats signifying its quality, and its quality only, in plain numerals ? The public would understand them perfectly well, and would look for them, while the protection should be a right of action in the County Court for double the value of the gold, considered at the value stamped by the dealer. The evidence would, of course, be that of an assayer licensed by the Mint, and would be final as against the gold, if not up to the printed stamp, which, being placed there by the vendor, would be equivalent to a written warranty. No tradesman would be able to run the risk of loss to be so incurred—more especially as the bonus would tempt informers—and of a judgment which, when published, would be the ruin of his business, and be would perforce be honest. At the same time, he would have absolutely no hindrance to contend with in his business. If he liked to sell gold of two carats only ho could do so, only he must tell the pur- chaser the fact by writing it in indelible characters upon the gold itself. Herr von Studnitz objects to this, upon the ground that the trade in poor gold would disappear, because no one would make presents in a gold avowedly below 18 carats, for fear of offending the receiver's amour propre; but surely the Legislature is not bound to foster a low vanity of that kind, which finds in the imaginary cost of jewels a compensation for deficiency in artistic form. If the system gave an advantage, as might be the case, to 18-carat gold, so much the better, that being an advan- tage given by law to the honest over the dishonest article. The action, of course, should lie, in the first instance, against the vendor, who always knows or can know the value of the metal he sells, and who, if innocent, can recoup himself by a similar action against the manufacturer. As for the Treasury, it has absolutely no need of a duty which probably costs more than it yields, and which produces even nominally only £42,000 a year.
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