arose under which its importation became profitable. This importation was, no doubt, facilitated by the prospect of early legislation furnishing a practical assurance that the holders of our securities, whether at home or abroad, might rely on their payment in gold or its equivalent; but the fact remains that the condition of the currency caused by the panic of the early summer was for a time precisely such as might have been expected to bring gold into the country. As might have been anticipated, the abatement of the extreme monetary stringency, as increasing amounts of hoarded money were released and restored to the circulation, was attended by a decrease in our imports of that metal, as compared with the large importations of August last; but in the present state of our laws relating to coinage and currency, no such excess of exports over imports as characterized the gold movement of the five-year period ending June 30, 1893, is at all likely to occur in the immediate future; nor is it at any time likely to continue through such a protracted period unless as a result of more exceptional causes than those connected with the natural ebbs and flows in our imports and exports of merchandise.