amount, it has been transferred to other Continental countries.

These have been the principal channels of distribution; but an important consideration remains-in what proportions have the various countries permanently absorbed the gold thus flowing through the channels of commerce? The following are the results arrived at by the Economist, still, the reader will recollect, for the period between 1858 and the present:

Retained in England

£68,000,000

in Continental Europe (chiefly in France) 105,000,000

in Portugal and some other countries.

not included in the last entry

12,000,000

The only other point connected with the movement which it will be needful here to refer to is the net addition which, as the result of the whole, has accrued to our own currency. As has been seen, it follows from the figures given by the Economist, that of the whole amount of gold passing through England since 1858 (about 190,000,000l.) 68,000,000l. have been retained in the country. The question arises, how has this sum been disposed of? The Economist answers that 28,000,000l. have been absorbed by our currency;

* So the figures are set down by the Economist; yet no place is given in the table to the United States; which, including California, must surely (notwithstanding the existence of an inconvertible currency) have retained some portion of the supplies.

60,000,000l. having been coined from the new gold, and 32,000,000l. of this having gone abroad. The 28,000,000l. thus added to our gold circulation would, as the Economist remarks, of course be a maximum sum. Taking it at 25,000,000l., and accepting Mr. Newmarch's estimate of the coin in circulation in 1857 as 75,000,000l., this would bring our gold currency at the present time up to 100,000,000l.-rather more than double the amount estimated by Mr. Newmarch as in circulation a few years previous to 1848. Assuming the facts to stand thus, our gold circulation would have been about doubled since the gold discoveries. This, however, only accounts for, at most, 28,000,000l. out of the 68,000,000l. retained in one form or another in the country since 1858; and here a question arises as to what has become of the remaining 40,000,000l. retained at home, but not entering into the circulation? The answer given The answer given to this question by the Economist appears to me, I confess, the least satisfactory part of its statement. It in effect amounts to this, that, allowing for 12,000,000l. as probably existing in the form of foreign coin, partly in the reserves of the Bank of England, and partly in the hands of exchange dealers, the remainder—28,000,000l. -has been used up for purposes of art and manufacture; in other words, that the United Kingdom has, in this way, consumed about 2,000,000l. of gold annually since 1858. As far as appears, there are no grounds for supposing such a consumption except the difficulty of otherwise accounting for the gold. For my part, in presence of M. Chevalier's facts and arguments on this subject, I find it quite impossible to

accept this explanation, and should even prefer to believe, were there no other alternative, that a considerable portion of the missing sum had somehow escaped from the country without getting into the Government returns.

The foregoing statements give an outline of the movement during the period under review, so far as gold is concerned; but the real character of its effects on the monetary systems of the world cannot be understood without taking into account the simultaneous operations in silver. For example, one of the most important considerations connected with the subject is the proportions in which the additions made to the monetary stock have been absorbed by the different commercial countries. From the table given above it would seem as if the Continent of Europe was the largest absorbent-larger even than India and the East; but in point of fact the greater portion of the 105,000,000l. of new gold retained by Continental Europe has been employed in substitution for silver formerly existing in her currencies, the silver thus parted with having in the main been passed on to the East. The addition therefore made to the metallic currencies of the Continent, as the result of the gold movement, is greatly less than the mere gold statistics would indicate; while the addition made to Oriental currencies is very much greater. I have no data from which to estimate the precise amount thus transferred, nor is there any need here to go into details. A single fact will suffice to give an idea of the scale on which this silver movement has been proceeding. I find that the amount of silver which passed to the

East by way of Egypt alone during the last fifteen. years has amounted to no less than 95,000,000l.; of this the greater portion was taken from the currencies of Europe, and principally from that of France, and the whole has been added, over and above the 90,000,000l. of gold stated above, to the currencies of India and the East. The largest absorbents, therefore, of the vast additions now being made to the monetary stock of the world have not been the countries of Continental Europe, but Oriental countries, mainly India and China. We thus find, in conformity with the mode of distribution described in the third of the foregoing essays, that, although England and the United States receive the chief portion of the new supplies in the first instance, yet of these only a small part is retained permanently in their currencies. The rest is passed on to the Continent of Europe and to Asia; while, again, of the portion sent to the Continent probably the largest part finds its way ultimately to the East, not indeed always in the form in which it entered the Continent,-not, that is to say, as gold,but in that of silver, into which it has been transmuted on the way.

V.

CO-OPERATION IN THE

SLATE QUARRIES OF NORTH WALES.*

THE public must now be tolerably familiar with the story of the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers, and of the numerous societies, founded upon the same principles, which in various parts of the country have already accomplished such great things for the working people, and given earnest for the future of still greater achievements in their behalf. It has heard something also of other and more genuine examples of "co-operation," where associates not only trade but "work" together, where the labourers are also the capitalists, and wages and profits return to the same hands; experiments which, small as have been the actual fruits they have hitherto yielded, form yet, in the opinion of those who have most deeply pondered the problem of industrial reform, the most solid grounds of hope for the future permanent elevation of the labouring class. But there is, besides

* Macmillan's Magazine, January 1865.

See an article of great interest in the Westminster Review for April 1864, entitled "Strikes and Industrial Co-operation," in which the whole subject is handled with remarkable ability and knowledge.