International Monetary and Economic Conferences

France in 1865 fostered the Latin Monetary Union, whereby its currency and those of Belgium, Italy and Switzerland were unified in respect to their gold and silver coins.

Monetary conditions changed radically in the early 1870s, however, and the next conferences were unsuccessful attempts driven by the United States to restore the fortunes of bimetallism.

[3]: 70  The late 19th century was also a time of rapid development of commercial banking in continental Europe, which led to issues of credit being considered alongside narrowly defined currency matters.

At the Brussels conference in 1892, German academic Julius Wolff submitted a blueprint for an international currency that would be used for emergency lending to national central banks and would be issued by an institution based in a neutral country.

The international monetary and economic conferences ultimately failed because they lacked a commitment device to ensure compliance with whatever principles were agreed.