236 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES

industrial or other uses, and, naturally, those coins will be
preferred for melting which yield the greatest amount of
metal,
Gresham’s Law applies in practice also to the case of
urrencies of two different metals. Thus, if silver and gold
soins of the same denomination have relative weights in the
proportion of 15 to 1 in one country, as in the United
States before 1837, and 1 5% to I in another, as in France
at the same period, and if mints are open to the coinage of
both metals, when remittances of money metal have to
be made from one of the countries to the other, gold will
be selected for export from America, silver for export from
France. When, after 1837, the United States modified their
coinage ratio to 16 to I, the choice fell in the opposite
direction, gold being the preferred metal for export from
France, silver from America. The movement being due
to a difference in the relative valuation, outside a country,
of elements which, within it, are valued equally for monetary
purposes, the selection of the same proportions of value, in
the countries between which movements are of importance,
would destroy the motive for making a preferential export
of the one or the other variety of coin. We do not propose
to discuss here the feasibility of such uniformity of valuation
and widespread adoption of the system of a double metallic
standard. The coinage of silver, in countries having a gold
standard, is now carried on in such amounts only as are
judged requisite for supplying a convenient amount of
token-coin for purposes of small change. The coinage of
gold in these countries, however, is not similarly restricted,
but depends on the supplies of gold available for coinage.
We turn now to consider the influence on the exchanges
of the element of time, hitherto ignored. The supply of bills
at any time is influenced by anticipations as to the movements
 of the near future. In a country, for example, which
exports large amounts of agricultural produce, the period of
most active exportation will fall after the harvest has been
gathered and prepared for shipment, Bills drawn against
exports will then be plentiful, and relatively cheap. At
other times of the year they are often scarce and relatively