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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2011
[The following letters (1 and 2) were elicited by an article in the Times of September 23, 1863, upon the panic as to the depreciation of gold caused by the fresh discoveries of the metal in California and Australia. Ruskin was at Chamouni at the time, and his father seems to have written asking his opinion on the whole subject. Ruskin's reply is here printed (1). Later, when he had seen the article in the Times, he wrote a letter to that journal (2).]
A LETTER TO J. J. RUSKIN
Chamouni, September 27 [1863].
I have yours of the 24th, but not the Times of 23rd spoken of. But if I had, it would be useless, for I cannot put the facts of the currency more clearly than I have already in Fraser, December '62, p. 744: see especially the note. Of course gold is only precious as long as people think it so, and it loses its value either when more of it is found, or when other things diminish in quantity. Every destruction of a ship's cargo or warehouse load, in the American war — every lost harvest in Poland—every robbery or arson in Calabria, diminishes the value of every piece of gold in the world. Increase the destruction to the rate of it in a shipwreck or famine, and gold becomes entirely worthless; it does not matter how much of it you have, if you can get nothing to eat with it, nor save your life with it.
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