Were this true his reasoning would be more sound.
A legally bimetallic country from which either metal
has been entirely drained away, of course cannot per-
manently carry on its bimetallic role. After that it
tends to affect the relative value of the metals as
would a monometallic land using the cheaper. The
change need not by any means be immediate, because
the legal attitude of the country is equally friendly to
both metals, and its power, through a fortunate con-
dition of the exchanges, to use for distant payments
the gold of a neighboring country, settling there-
fore with produce, might keep up the old status quo for
a long time.
But France had not lost all her gold, though she
had lost much. During every one of the years named,



172 Giffen on Bimetallism.
that is, from 1803 to 1850, considerable sums of gold
as well as of silver were brought to the French mint, a
fact which I prononnce inexplicable unless the princi-
ple of bimetallism was working. People could not
have offered gold at the mint had there been no gold
in France.
The declarations of Chevalier and of certain English
travelers in France during this period, to the effect
that French money was all silver, are too indefinite
to settle the question. So a Californian upon a
visit East might declare that there was no gold in
New York City but only paper money, or an Eastern
man temporarily in San Francisco really suppose bank
notes to be unused in that city. And there are state- *
ments of a contrary tenor, like that of Huskisson, in
1826, a year in which little gold was coined in France.
