measured by nominal money incomes and wages, which have hardly changed; and in this way, in spite of the fall of prices, gold has been a good standard for a progressive country like England, even for a long period. If incomes as well as the value of commodities had also declined nominally, the appreciation would have been more serious, but the actual gravity of the appreciation has not been great-it has not gone beyond the limits which are tolerable in a standard, and which may be looked for in any standard that may be selected. And the position as regards silver in India for a long period is even more satisfactory. India is not a progressive community, and there has been no advance, I believe, in real wages and incomes in India corresponding to the advance in England in the last twenty-five years. At the same time, at least for many years after the fall in silver measured by gold began, there was no advance either in money wages and incomes or in the prices of commodities in India. Thus the silver standard answered its purpose even more perfectly in India than the gold standard did in England, because in India there was no fall in prices as there was in England, although money wages and incomes were also stationary as they were in England. If India had had the gold standard, there is no doubt that a fall in prices would have been accompanied by a fall in wages and incomes, which we have escaped in England because of the progress of the community here, but which India could not have escaped, being unprogressive by comparison. As a matter of fact, therefore, the divergence between gold and silver, though it looks formidable, is still consistent with the fact that gold and silver have, each in its own sphere, gold in England and silver in India and the East, proved good standardsgood for short periods, essential for a standard money, and each better for long periods in its own sphere than a common standard either of gold or silver, or even a mixed standard, would have been. Accident has done better for both gold and silver countries than the most laboured preparation beforehand could have done. Of late years it is asserted that prices and wages have begun to go up in India -i.e. that the standard has depreciated-an assertion which is most probably true. I have not had time or opportunity to investigate the assertion, and I express no opinion. But if true, the depreciation over a long period is quite consistent with the money being excellent for the primary purpose of a measure of value over short periods-that is, from day to day, week to week, month to month, and even year to year. The depreciation is no greater than what has often happened in similar periods, and what happened in this country and in India itself in the fifties and the early sixties.

Those who are interested in silver-using countries, therefore, including India, should protest with all their strength against the notion that silver does not remain a good standard for money as well as gold, in spite of divergence from the former ratio between these two metals when they are exchanged against each other, and the

corresponding variations in the exchange between gold- and silverusing countries. As to the occasional rapid fluctuations in the exchange, of which so much has been made, they are hardly to be considered, whatever they are, in a question of the proper standard money for a particular country. The suitability of the money for internal exchanges is here the point; the foreign exchanges will take care of themselves. Such fluctuations are essential even to the existence of great merchants and exchange dealers who are most competent to take care of themselves, and the business of the ordinary trader is hardly concerned. Too much must not be made of exchange difficulties when we look at the enormous foreign business done by the United States during the Civil War with rapidly and violently fluctuating inconvertible paper, and at the business done in our own time by countries like Russia and the Argentine Republic with inconvertible paper. The fluctuations in exchange between gold- and silver-using countries are not to be spoken of by comparison.

It is impossible to anticipate that the monetary commotion will be quieted all at once in the way described. The waters have been disturbed too deeply to subside in a day. But our own record will be clear, and foreign agitations will affect us less.

As to what foreign countries may do, it would be useless to speculate very much. But a survey of the facts in the leading countries of the world would seem to show that as agitation diminishes a tolerable situation will arise. Europe has practically become monometallic on a gold basis. Germany has long been in that category, though not quite so ready, it is said, to let gold be paid out of the Bank of Germany, as strict theory requires. France is also in that category, though cumbered by an inheritance of useless silver from the time when it was bimetallic and lately by the heresy of its leading public men. Austria-Hungary and Italy, and last of all Russia, have committed themselves to the same principle, while the northern countries of Europe and other minor places where inconvertible paper does not reign, are monometallic on a gold basis also. If well is let alone, something like monetary stability over a wide region is thus being established. It may be doubtful whether the gold standard can be successfully established in all the countries trying it, but the experiment involves no departure from sound principle, and leaves the way open when it fails for a monometallic standard of silver. The same may be said of other less important countries like Japan, and, if it definitely adopts a gold standard, of India itself. So long as there is a monometallic standard, whether of gold or silver, there is no departure from sound principle, and failure to establish the one should lead to the establishment of the other by the consent of all concerned. The United States is a greater difficulty, on account of the party passions involved and the amount of money that seems to be available for what is called the 'rehabilitation' of

silver. But, in spite of many appearances to the contrary, I have no little faith in the actual wisdom of the United States public in the last resort, in matters of money. If this belief is justified, the gold standard in the United States will be preserved from any new attack, and the soft money' agitation, which has been persisted in notwithstanding its failures for quite thirty years-it dates back as far as that -will subside. At the worst, in the United States they can but go over to a silver standard; and although the shock will be great at first, a silver standard steadily adhered to, provided all proper obligations contracted in gold are met in gold, would not be a bad thing.

In any case, whatever is done in foreign countries, our own action in adhering to a single standard and to the sound principles of the monetary system of which that is the foundation, will have a steadying effect. Agitation will be discredited when it is seen that the best thing as regards a good metallic money, when once established, is to let it alone, and if a nation has not got it, to get it as soon as possible and stick to it. Agitators, by the necessity of their agitation, exaggerate altogether the sphere and influence of money, and seek to accomplish by means of changes in money what these changes cannot effect, which necessarily produce disturbance and unrest that are altogether mischievous.

A final remark I would make is that the utility of gold and silver as the money metals must not be judged of by the facts in a time of transition. On general grounds, notwithstanding all the change of the last twenty-five years, gold and silver remain good money metals, silver as well as gold, and even a greater change might take place without that fact being altered. Very great changes, although not so great a change, have happened before-for instance, in the first half of the seventeenth century; and there is no reason in the nature of things why they should not happen at times. But it still remains true that gold and silver do not change so much as other things,,in short periods, the quality which fits them for money, and while that is the case we must not expect the rapid fluctuations of the last twenty-five years to be perpetual; certainly not, if Governments learn wisdom and avoid incessant operations in one metal or the other. Even in the last twenty-five years, as I have frequently pointed out, there have been lengthened intervals of steadiness between gold and silver. When the revolutionary period is over, though no one can predict the future, the metals should fall again into a more normal condition. Meanwhile the alarms which have been felt and the calls for interference and action, though natural enough, have really been unjustified, and in forgetfulness of the wisdom of laissez-faire, which is especially commendable in affairs where it is impossible to forecast the ultimate effects of interference and where mistakes as to the first effects are only too readily made.

VOL. XLII-No. 249

ROBERT GIFFEN. 3 B

CREEDS IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOLS

QUESTIONS affecting the right organisation of our primary school system, and especially those which concern the relation that ought to subsist between the various bodies-religious, philanthropic, municipal and imperial-engaged in the administration of that system, are always with us. The aspects of the problem vary from year to year, but its final solution has not yet been reached. In particular, there are some proposals now awaiting the judgment of the London electors which are of far higher than local interest, and the treatment of which cannot fail to have an important bearing on the public opinion and the educational policy of the whole country.

It will be remembered that one result of the memorable general election of 1895 was to send to Parliament a large majority of men favourable to the voluntary principle, and pledged to vote in support of additional public aid to denominational schools. The Government, in these circumstances, was bound to act in accordance with the mandate of the constituencies. In 1896 they brought forward a measure which, while it offered sensible relief to the managers of such schools, took a larger and more ambitious scope, and dealt inter alia with the organisation of secondary and technical education, with the transfer of much of the responsibility for the efficiency of teaching from the central Government to local bodies, and with the introduction of special religious teachers of various denominations into all elementary schools alike. This measure was felt by many, even of the habitual supporters of the Government, to be crude and ill considered, and it was ultimately withdrawn. The legislation of this year has been more modest in its scope and purpose. It has had for its main object to relieve the religious bodies of what some of them described as an 'intolerable strain' in the form of voluntary subscriptions, and to make it easier for those bodies to maintain their schools as integral parts of the provision for national education, side by side with the schools provided by Boards. How effectual this relief has proved may be seen on looking at a few figures. Last year the voluntary contributions of the supporters of Church of England schools amounted to 643,386., those of the Wesleyans to 21,593l., and those of the Roman Catholic community to

97,4487., while those of British and other undenominational schools reached the sum of 88,541l. The total of the voluntary effort is thus represented by about 850,000l., and the Act of last April provided a new grant of five shillings per child for all voluntary schools, and at the same time released the managers from the obligation to pay local rates. In advocating this liberal addition to the resources of the denominations, a wish was expressed by the VicePresident that the new grant of 650,000l. should be devoted to the improvement of the school equipment, to the increase of the staff and to the better payment of the teachers; and it cannot be doubted that the Education Department under its present heads, and in accordance with its best traditions, may be relied on to secure these objects as far as possible. But there is nothing in the Act which makes such application of the additional funds imperative; and it is certain that a large part of this fund will be devoted to lightening the burden of the voluntary subscribers, and that the amount contributed by religious bodies, which at present scarcely amounts to one-twelfth of the whole cost of primary education in the country, will materially and steadily decrease. Even in 1894, there were nearly 5,000 denominational schools maintained either without voluntary support at all or with contributions not exceeding five shillings per scholar. Now all these schools and probably many others will remain under the exclusive management of self-constituted committees, who will appoint the teachers, determine the character of the religious instruction, and secure for their several denominations such sectarian advantages as a school can hardly fail to give, but who neither subscribe a shilling to the funds nor represent any body of subscribers. Such schools have now by the grace of Parliament been liberally assisted; they have escaped for the present the much dreaded co-operation of the ratepayer in the local management; and they have secured a renewed lease of life and activity for the voluntary principle.

The supporters of that principle are not, however, content with the very substantial concessions thus gained. They have been encouraged to suppose that the public opinion which has already enabled the Government to confer one advantage will also help them to go a step farther, and by impressing the Board Schools also with something of a denominational character, to overturn the settlement made by Mr. Forster in the Education Act of 1870. The Moderate' electors are publicly invited to take the opportunity of 'improving their position as Churchmen.' It is constantly urged upon them that what is wanted is more 'definite' Christian teaching than is provided in Board Schools under the existing law. This means, of course, that in their view the Bible is not definite enough, and that the teaching of our Lord and His apostles is of little value unless it is supplemented by the interpretation put upon it by some religious body or other. In other words, 'definite' teaching means denomina