In 1895 and 1897 President Heureaux issued more silver coins
or, rather, coins washed over with silver, to the nominal amount of
$2,250,000, but the seigniorage was so enormous that the issue was a
case of a government counterfeiting its own money. The rate of
exchange fell to five pesos for one dollar gold and this is the rate
legalized by the law of June 19, 1905, which made the American gold
dollar the standard of the Dominican Republic.
For a while the ordinary smaller business transactions continued to be
based on silver values. On a trip to Santo Domingo in 1904 a friend
and myself were driven from the wharf to the hotel and the coachman
asked for two dollars. It seemed an outrageous charge, but we
considered ourselves in the hands of the Philistines, and handed over
an American two-dollar bill. "Excuse me until I can get change," said
the coachman to our surprise, and ran into the hotel; in a moment he
reappeared with a double handful of coins: "Here is your change," he
said, "eight dollars." The charge had been only forty cents in gold.
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