GENERAL WALKER'S ADDRESS.

Last evening in the lecture hall of the Fogg Art Museum, Generl, Francis A. Walker, President of the Institute of Technology, gave the first lecture of his series on "Bimetallism Since the Discovery of America." General Walker was cordially received by a large audience. A summary of his address follows.

Etymologically, Bimetallism simply means two metals in some mutaual relation to each other. In addition to this, however, it has come to be understood that the two metals concerned are gold and silver; and that this mutual relation is in, or through their use as money. Within these limits bimetallism may mean more or less. It means either the system of national bimetallism with free coinage of both metals at the legal ratio; or else, and this more properly, the system of international bimetallism, with a free coinage of the metals at a ratio common to the contracting nations. The term would also embrace the various monetary systems proposed by Professor Alfred Marshall of Cambridge University, Sir James Stewart, and Mr. Anson Phelps Stokes. In a wider sense still, bimetallism might embrace the considertion of everything which relates to the cost and conditions of production of gold and silver; to their consumption and use; to the economic principles governing prices; to the legal regulations as to the export of precious metals, to coinage and seigniorage, to legal tender in payment of debt;- all these as far as they affect the relation of the two metals named in their use as money.

It is in the larger rather than in the narrower sense that the subject will be treated in the present course of lectures. It the announcement that the subject was to be "Bimetallism Since the Discovery of America," you will be altogether discouraged when told that the present lecture goes back to the foundation of the world. But the reality is not so bad as the sound; for although there is a wealth of allusions, there is little in the elasical literature of antiquity that bears importantly upon the subject. The Hebrew Scriptures abound in these allusiouns. Abraham paid the children of Heth four hundred shekels of silver of the cave of Machpelah. Job says, "Surely there is a vein for silver; the earth hath dust of gold." In the book of Daniel there is an account of the great image which Nebuchadnezzar set up on the plains of Dura, three score cubits in height and six cubits in breadth. Then, too, there is the picture of Solomon's splendor.

All this, however, contributes little towards understanding the nature and uses of money; still less towards comprehending the relations between gold and silver in the performance of that function. Until more is known about the cave of Machpelah than history has banded down, the statement that Abraham paid four hundred shekels for it throws but a faint light on the purchasing power of money in his time; while the proud boast that King Solomon "made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones," though enough to make Senators Jones and Stewart rank infidels, does not even suggest a ratio.

The classical writers are even more unsatisfactory in their allusions relating to the times before the Macedonian conquest. Fable is at its worst here. Thus in Pliny there is an absurd account of the gold-hunting of the Bactrians. The works of Herodotus, Diodorus, and Strabo contain numerous legends regarding the production of the precious metals. But the conquest of Persia by Alexander, laying open the vast treasure houses of Susa, Persepolis and Ecbatana afforded something like a measure of the metallic wealth which had been amassed through many centuries. In that early time this wealth amounted to hundreds of millions of our money. This is the all important fact in the history of the precious metals down to the Macedonian conquest. That it should have reached into the hundreds of millions is a miracle, and it was to contemplate this phenomenon that this lecture goes back to the early ages. How was it possible that such a result should be attained? Why should so large an amount of labor have been put into this form of wealth, when the conditions of human existence were so strait and painful? Why, when bread was scarce almost to the point of famine, should men have dug for gold?

Again conceding the influence of the passion for gold, how could such immense masses have been accumulated when the simplest mechanical devices were unknow? How was such a feat physically possible?

Thirdly, how was such a production of the precious metals economically possible, under the law which controls the value of money?

The answer to the first two questions is highly analogous to the building of the pyramids. It is impossible to conceive of the greatest of modern nations performing such a task. The motive would be utterly lacking. With the ancient rules the task was completely non-economic, except so far as that slaves must be fed and children trained to take their palces.

Precisely similar were the terms on which millions of men labored through centuries to ple up the Persian treasures. It would be mockery to apply the word "industry" to the gold mining of the early ages. Every ounce of gold represented a human life.

The answer to the third question will require more time: How was such a production of the precious metals economically possible under the law controlling the value of money? That law is: The more freely gold, say, in any given interval of time, is produced, and the longer that production is carried on, the less, other things being equal, becomes the motive to continued production on the same scale. The new metal going into circulation drowns the mines, or all but the mines. Such is the economic condition under which the production of the precious metals is carried on. In the early ages the production was non-economic. Gold and silver were regarded as an end, not as a

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