NAPOLEON, ( Jerome ,) Prince President of the Conference to Clavery , Secretary of the Conference. Roux , Secretary Adjunct, July 6, 1867

International Monetary Conference.–Eighth and last sitting.

Prince Napoleon presiding. The sitting opened at 1 o’clock. Present, the delegates that attended the last meeting, and M. Delyannis, with the exception of Messrs. Kern, Vrolik, Viscount Villa-Maïor, Meinecke, and Graham.

His excellency Mihran-Bey-Duz, member of the grand council of justice, director of the mint of Constantinople, delegate from the Ottoman government, whose arrival in France was delayed, and who had been temporarily represented by Colonel Essad-Bey, took his place among the members of the conference.

The minutes of the seventh sitting having been adopted, on invitation from his Imperial Highnes, M. de Parieu read the following report, which he had. been instructed to prepare at the last sitting:

Monseigneur and gentlemen: In the month of December last, when the French government communicated the international convention of the 23d December’, 1865, to the states here represented, and called their attention to the grand idea of monetary uniformity, those communications were at first received with a certain hesitation in some particulars. We have been, perhaps, too long accustomed to consign many generous ideas, sustained only by common sense, to the region of dreams, leaving them to be buried by prejudice and the blind consideration of the immutability of existing facts. We all know that every enterprise of general interest requires a spirit of unity in its aims and principal means of accomplishment.

There were many points in the monetary question so difficult that they caused divisions in the doctrines and the views of the past.

The idea of monetary uniformity long languished in the aspirations of poets and economists. The members of the convention of the 23d of December, 1865, encouraged by the success of their labors, warmly welcomed the practical idea of their extension: and on witnessing the success of the monetary union concluded between France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy, notwithstanding the false situation caused by the forced circulation of paper in one of the states, it was hard for the government that had presided over the conference in 1855 to refrain from asking the support of the world for a more extended monetary uniformity.

The minister of foreign affairs has told you how much the imperial government was pleased at the eagerness of all the sovereign states of Europe, and of the government at Washington, in sending delegates to the conference proposed to them. In giving to the assembly a president whose great name, exalted position, manifest impartiality, and decided sympathy for monetary uniformity, have given our discussions a briliancy and importance that we could not expect from our own resources, it has complimented you more highly than could be done by words, and has thanked you all, men distinguished for diplomatic merits, economical science, or technical experience in the monetary art, for the earnest welcome you have given to the ideas you were called together to examine.

What was the precise object of your conference; the nature of the questions it was to expound?

This, gentlemen, was the first object of your reflections, and upon it the success of your meeting depended. The government of the Emperor might prepare the studies, but it could not fix the terms.

Monetary science is vast; many of its problems are debated by philosophers. Not one could be avoided. Appeals were to be made to reality, the only solvent of such problems, and the one of particular importance in the subject now before us for consideration.

At the trade conference of 1864, in Frankfort, it was truly said, “monetary questions are more practical than all others.”

The chief question for examination was the monetary standard.

On this subject you are aware that the world is divided between three different systems, the gold standard, the silver standard, and the double standard. It was indispensable to know which of these forms would furnish the most desirable and permanent basis for a monetary unity.

Governed by these considerations, you have agreed upon a series of questions as the basis of your labors, on the report of a committee of seven members, in the formation of which all the systems had been equitably represented.

This “questionnaire,” to adopt a neologism of our administrative language, you unanimously adopted in the following terms:

“1st. What is the best way to realize monetary unity—by the creation of an entirely new system independent of existing systems; and in that case what should be the basis of that system; or, by the combination of present systems, taking into consideration the scientific advantages of certain types, and the number of nations that have already adopted them?”

In the latter case what monetary system ought to be chiefly considered, with the reserve of any improvement that might be made in it?

“2d. Can identities or partial assimilations of monetary types be now constituted on a large scale by adopting the silver standard exclusively?

“3d. On the other hand, can that result be reached by adopting a gold standard exclusively?

“4th. Could a similar result be attained by adopting the double standard and fixing in all the nations the relative value of gold and silver?

“5th. In case of a negative response to the preceding questions, is it possible, or expedient to establish identity or partial assimilation of monetary types on a large scale with a silver standard, leaving each state the liberty of preserving its gold standard?

“6th. Is it possible and useful to establish identity or partial assimilation of monetary types on a gold basis, leaving each state the liberty of preserving its silver standard?

“7th. In case of affirming one of the two preceding questions, would the internationality of the coin adopted as a common standard be a sufficient assurance of its continued circulation in each state; or would it be necessary to stipulate a certain limit in the relation between the value of gold and silver, or to provide for the case in which international coins would run the risk of being expelled from circulation in any of the contracting states?

“8th. For the success of monetary unity is it necessary to constitute an identical unity of metallic composition everywhere with similarity of weight and denomination, and what basis is to be adopted; or is it enough to constitute common types of a common denominator as high as multiples of five francs for gold?

“9th. In case gold is adopted as an international metal, would it be useful for the types of that coin adopted by the monetary convention of the 23d of December, 1865, to be completed by new types of 15 and 25 francs for the sake of unity and in the spirit of reciprocity? In this case, what should be their dimensions?

“10th. In case of affirmative to questions three or six, would it be useful to regulate silver or copper coins by common obligations as to their composition or standard, their limit in payment, or the amount of their issue?

”11th. Would it be proper to fix certain means of control to insure the exact coinage of the common types of the international money?

“12th. Besides the immediate practical possibilities already discussed, would further discussions of general principles be desirable to spread over Europe the assimilations already effected of hereafter to be realized in respect to money?”

Although no idea of exclusion has entered into this “questionnaire,” it is remarkable that its discussion during five sittings has suggested no serious addition; on the contrary, the 10th and 11th questions you have put off, although the principle of measures of control has been judged indispensable to the success of the monetary conventions, and the 12th question was left undecided.

The decisions of the conference, as a whole, have been regulated by the dominant desire that any future monetary legislation shall result, as far as practicable, in diplomatic conventions between different states, to secure them against their own inconstancy. It is the evident interest of the states to secure the political advantages of the assimilation of their monetary types by the reciprocal circulation of their coins.

You did not think the reciprocal circulation in public banks, as resolved upon in 1865, completely answered the aspirations for a monetary uniformity; and, contrary to some reserves found in your minutes, you thought legal currency ought to be considered the last word in the tendencies to unity.

The nine first questions of your sittings are comprised in three formulas too abstract to be discussed, and I will reduce them to their simplest form of expression.

The whole world agreeing upon the benefits to be derived from monetary unity, but the difficulties and delays of effecting it being very apparent, the question is, how can it be effected? By the creation of a new monetary system established priori or by strict adhesion to existing systems, or simply by bending them, so to speak, and perfecting them here after?

Such was the triple problem proposed for your solution.

All of your states, except Belgium, have agreed not to propose a new system, lest such an undertaking might indefinitely delay the desired monetary assimilation.

A new system would have probably been founded upon the adoption of a decimal gold piece of a certain weight as a unity. You do not say that such a regularity could be attained without difficulty, however beautiful it might be in theory, and without disturbing inveterate-habits found in the attachment to the silver franc, almost a copy of the old French livre tournois.

Instead of seeking a system new in all its parts, you have preferred to adopt that of the monetary convention signed at Paris on the 23d of Decepber 1855, and which being now adopted by Rome and Athens, seems by a fortunate coincidence to reunite the greater portion of the countries in which, at the close of ancient history, civilization by various modes had marked out the perimeter of its first empire.

The close union of this system, in its silver coins, with the metrical weights, whether the coins be considered as a distinct standard or as small change, and the 72,000,000 of people that use it and are attached to it, have made you regard it as a centre of assimilation around which the efforts of other nations might cluster with probabilities of success. But you did not look upon the system as fixed and perfect.

You rightly thought it capable of contraction or extension; that, though the unit was called a franc here, a lira there, and a drachma elsewhere, still a greater latitude was possible, particularly in regard to the unit value.

Most of the civilized nations have a monetary unity above a franc in value. The piastre, the thaler, the ruble, and the dollar, four pieces similar in origin and name, are nearly the quadruple or quintuple of the unit adopted in the convention of 1855.

If the German and Dutch florins and the Spanish crowns differ less from the franc on the other hand the wealthy British civilization places its monetary unit much higher in value.

Though the small Roman state has converted its scudo, similar to the piastre and dollar, into francs, we can hardly hope that larger and more populous states will immediately adopt all the monetary units we have reported in the convention of the 23d of December, 1885. You have, therefore, thought proper to suggest a single unit as a common denominator, borrowed from the system of the convention, around which the other unities should circulate.

If silver had been adopted for the unitary basis, all other systems might have been assimilated to the franc as a common denominator. But could the silver franc have been the pivot of equations, commensurabilities and coincidences desired in the monetary systems we would like to make universal for the benefit of exchange, trade, travel, financial, statistical, and scientific operations To a certain extent, this was the chief question for their deliberations.

Here the laws that brought the precious metals into contact with the wealth of communities, and which have twice given a monetary system to the universe, came into consideration. The rule of these laws was broken by the great historic catastrophe that separated ancient from modern civilization by an intermediate period of poverty and barbarism, but how strikingly reproduced after a lapse of nearly eighteen centuries.

In the time of Augustus, when gold had gained the ascendency in money circulation, the Roman poet exclaimed:

AEra debant olin: melius nunc omen in auro est,

Victaque concedit prisca moneta novse.

From the middle ages to our day, the revolution that Ovid mentions incompletely, for he omits silver, has lain quiet, till it breaks out now with renewed strength and peculiar min-erological, industrial, and commercial circumstances. No new invasion of babarism can reverse its course in Europe, where silver first took the place of iron and copper, and where silver is now displaced by gold.

In most of the civilized nations of Europe and America the latter metal has become the principal instrument of circulation, because its portability and density particularly recommend it as the material for monetary unity. When the convention of the 23d September, 1865, closed, three of the associate states wished gold to be the choice of the convention. Even in the last century, a learned man of Germany, where so many grand ideas originate, declared that gold was destined to become the bond of the monetary systems of the universe.

By a most singular coincidence, when only two out of twenty states had gold for a standard, your conference decided upon it for the standard, with silver as a transitory companion; and this was done because the doubled standard was necessary in certain states that were used to it, or where silver was the exclusive standard.

This valuable unanimity on a question so important, tending to perfect the monetary system of the convention of 1865, will certainly influence public opinion, and certain men in the interior of states who may have retained any doubt on the question.

In thus adopting gold as a basis for the desired union, it was only in a common denominator above the franc that it was possible to realize the useful equations and frequent coincidences in the systems to be brought together: for, in gold coins, the very minute differences could not be distinguished with precision by the process of coinage, and already the mere distance of five francs may be sometimes diffcult to express sufficiently in the external form of the monetary disks.

The weight of five francs in gold of nine-tenths fineness, the standard which was unanimously approved, and also one of the conditions of the convention of 1865, then appeared to be the proper denominator for the basis of a desired assimilation between the monetary systems of the twenty states represented.

You are aware that the coins of the union of 1865 are already grouped around this denominator.

For example, it was shown how near the type of 25 francs came to the pound sterling the half eagle of 5 dollars, and a piece adopted by the Vienna conference to represent the value of 10 florins. This type of 25 francs, especially recommended in the conference by the representatives of Austria and of the United States, has been unanimously accepted by the states that voted in the discussion of question nine, but on optional conditions.

Your opinions were more divided, in fact equally, in regard to the utility of recommending at present a gold piece of 15 francs, the approximate equation of 7 florins of the Netherlands and South Germany, and of 4 thalers of North Germany. But, without recommending this type, as you did that of 25 francs, you nevertheless agreed that, if circumstances rendered it proper, it would be open to no serious objection in itself, unless it might be in the delicacy of the process for coining it distinctly.

The eventual extension of the types of gold coins would necessitate, a fortiori, for the states that desired it, correlative latitude in the forms of their silver coins, the internationality of which is of less importance.

Such, gentlemen, are the simple but instructive and plain bases that you have thought proper to accept as a sort of siege to the citadel of monetary diversity, the fall of which you would like to behold, or, at least, to gradually destroy its walls, for the benefit of the daily increasing commerce and exchanges of every description among the different members of the human family.

The desire of not detaining you longer, gentlemen, after a session of three weeks, is my apology for the imperfection of this hastily written digest, which is made in the hope that some decision may be reached by the middle of February, 1868, or at least some instructive steps taken by the governments that have sent you to this conference.

If the germs of our collective, enlightened and benevolent aspirations, freed from the unpleasant compensations that sometimes attend the most seductive reforms, in which we are all animated by the true spirit of civilization and modern progress, shall come to fructify around you, I hope, gentlemen, you will pleasurably recall the honorable memories of the part you have taken in these delicate scientific discussions, with the satisfaction of their joint pursuit, under a presidency so memorable, and with a facility and harmony as perfect as that of delegates from a single nation in its ordinary deliberations.

E. DE PARIEU,

Vice-President of the International Monetary Conference.

After the interchange of a few observations, the terms of M. Parieu’s report were unanimously approved by the conference.

Baron De Hock then pronounced the following address:

Monseigneur: In the name of the foreign members of the conference, I have the honor to present you their most sincere homage for the wisdom, the profound knowledge of the cause, the assiduity and the energy with which you have been pleased to direct our labors, and to thank you most respectfully for the kindness and indulgence of your highness in accepting our observations and our counsel.

Allow us also, monseigneur, to express our thanks to the honorable M. de Parieu, who presided over our first conferences, and who has since aided your highness with so much intelligence and circumspection. We reverence him as one of the authors of the convention of the 25th December, 1865, which is destined to become the basis of universal monetary unification, and as an eloquent and profound writer, whose essays have played apart so important in the propagation of the noble and luminous idea that has been the subject of our discussion, and who by his remarkable report of to-day has become the protagoniste of our conference.

I am also instructed to thank Messrs. Clavery and Roux, the secretaries of the conference, for the perspicacity and precision with which they have recorded our speeches in the minutes.

Your highness may be assured that the hours we have passed under your illustrious presidency will forever be precious memories for us all.

We venture to request you, monseigneur, to be the interpreter of our most devoted thanks to his Majesty the Emperor, whose name presides over ali that accomplishes greatness in France.

Prince Napoleon, having expressed his personal thanks, and those of the board, for the sentiments uttered by Baron de Hock, said he would take pleasure in being interpreter for the commission with the Emperor, who has always taken a lively interest in its labors.

Finally, his Imperial Highness advised all the delegates, in pressing terms, to exercise all their influence, when they returned to their respective nations, to carry the decisions they have adopted into some practical result.

The minutes were then approved, and his Imperial Highness pronounced the close of the labors of the conference.