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iron. The African uses cloth, salt and cowrie-shells. tle held the largest place as money among the ancients and many of our financial and commercial words are derived from old words indicating the early prominence of the flock and herd. The arms of Diomede were valued at nine oxen ; those of Glaucus at one hundred oxen. The Franks levied a tribute of oxen on the conquered Saxons. Our word "pecuniary" is the Latin pecus, " cattle." Our "fee" is the Saxon feoh, cattle.

Metal money was first employed as representing value in cattle. The ox or sheep became its emblem and was stamped on the metal.

As civilization progressed and exchanges became more frequent, gold and silver took the place of all cruder metals and devices, as money.

This was because time and experience had proved their superiority as measurers of value and media of exchange. They do not deteriorate by keeping.

Their production is limited by scarcity of their ores. This gives great value in proportion to weight, and facilitates handling, transport and hoarding.

The annual losses of the precious metals by wear and tear and by absorption in the arts have so nearly equalled the annual production, as that the excess of production has seldom exceeded the ratio of increase in population and the growing demand for money. Thus the demand and supply being nearly equal, the value of gold and silver remains very stable, as compared with other metals, or other measures of value.

The accumulated stock of the precious metals, estimated in money and ornaments at $10,000,000,000 in the world, tends to lessen variations in value that might be occasioned by diminution or failure of the annual supply.

All civilized nations seek and accept gold and silver as a means of facilitating exchange.

Gold and silver are easily divisible into parts and proportions of given weights and values.

They receive with ease and permanently the impression which distinguishes their weight, size, design and value. They are readily distinguishable from other metals; gold by its weight, silver by its sound.

THE VALUE OF MONEY.

The purchasing power of money ascertains its value. The pure silver which would have bought eight bushels of wheat during the Middle Ages, would bring only two bushels, after the discovery of America. Therefore, it was said of silver, that it had declined to one-fourth of its previous value.

Supply of an article usually affects its value, but a supply of money involves the quantity in existence and the rapidity of its circulation. A dollar that makes three exchanges a day is worth three dollars that make one exchange a day.

If the demand for money is less than the supply, its value decreases; only we don't say so, but that prices rise. If the demand for money is greater than the supply, its value increases; but we say, that prices fall.

Alterations in the value of money lead to confusion in commercial, legal and economic relations. A decrease in the amount or value of money seriously affects the debtor classes. An increase in the amount or value of money injures the creditor classes.

MONEY SYSTEMS.

The gold and silver that enter into money are not pure, but mixed with alloy, usually copper, to save the coins from

wearing. The quantity of alloy generally introduced is about one-tenth, that is, one part alloy to nine parts of pure metal.

In England, the unit of money, gold or silver, of which the other coins are multiples, is the sovereign or pound; in France, the franc; in Germany, the mark; in Holland, the florin; in the United States, the dollar. The larger coins. are generally made a legal tender for debts, without limit. Smaller fractional or subsidiary coins are generally made a legal tender for debts, with a limit as to amount. Still smaller coins, cents, nickels, and such as rank as "token money," are made legal tender for debts of a still smaller amount.

Formerly, monarchs, cities, bishops and nobles claimed the right to coin money, and they frequently abused their right by diminishing the value of the currency, either by reducing the quantity of pure metal in the coins, or by declaring them to have a legal value far beyond their intrinsic value. Solon decreed that the mina should be worth a hundred drachmas instead of seventy-three. Plutarch says of this decree: "In this way, by paying apparently the full value, though really less, those who owed large sums gained considerably, without causing any loss to their creditors." Says Laveleye," Plutarch here expresses the error which has inspired all issues of depreciated and paper currency. No one seems to lose, because payments are made just as well with coins reduced in value as with the unreduced. What is forgotten is that prices rise in proportion as the unit of money loses its value."

At the present time the right of coinage is, as a rule, reserved by the sovereign State, and is jealously guarded. In most countries the coining of the standard coin is free.

In France, Italy, Switzerland and Belgium, which countries agreed, in 1863, to form the Latin Monetary Union,

all gold coins and five-franc pieces are accepted as standard. The minor silver coins are a legal tender for only small debts, and the mints cannot issue them to a greater extent than the value of six francs for each inhabitant. The system of the Latin Union is the double standard or bi-metallic system; that is, it permits the free and unlimited coinage of both gold and silver pieces, to each of which it gives legal currency, or the right to be accepted in all payments. It has, however, been compelled to modify this system to suit circumstances.

Countries whose system is "single standard or mono-metallic," whether such standard be gold as in some, or silver as in others, accord free and unlimited coinage and legaltender quality only to the metal they fix as the standard. The mono-metallic system is the simpler, as to relation of value between coins of different denominations; but as to relation of value between money and goods, the bi-metallic system is more sensitive and, consequently, exact.

In 1558 Thomas Gresham, one of the councillors of Queen Elizabeth, demonstrated that the money which has the less value will drive from circulation the money which has the greater value. This is known in monetary science GRESHAM'S LAW."

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In 1717 Sir Isaac Newton showed that a means of obviating the ill effects of "Gresham's Law" existed, by fixing the relation of value between gold and silver the same in all countries. In later times attempts have been made to do this by means of International Monetary Congresses. Attempts to establish a fixed relation of value between gold and silver by single countries have not proved satisfactory. Economists are by no means agreed as to which metal, gold or silver, is preferable as a standard. That the largest number of countries, certainly the largest commercial coun

tries, adopt gold as the standard metal, implies some powerful reason for it; but it by no means disproves the theory that gold itself shifts in value like silver and probably quite as much. Indeed, not a few aver that much of what appears to be a shift in the value of silver is really a shift in the value of gold, with which the silver is compared. They also say that in the very nature of things silver is a metal of more stable value than gold, because its production comes from deep mines, with costly machinery, and an annual output which cannot be increased except at great expense, nor lessened without great loss; whereas the product of gold, much of which comes from auriferous sands, may increase or diminish very greatly in a short space of time.

BEGINNING OF AMERICAN COINAGE.

Immediately after the peace of 1783, and while the Articles of Confederation constituted our only bonds of government, some of the prominent patriots, notably Morris, Jefferson and Hamilton, began agitation looking to the establishment of an American Mint. Naturally the character of the proposed mintage came under discussion. This was the "Coinage Question" of that day. It was neither political nor bitter as at present, but it was none the less earnest, and involved many of the points now under discussion.

Great respect was paid to the views of Morris, who, as Superintendent of Finance, was well qualified to speak upon the character of the mintage. He reached the conclusion that in as much as the relative values of gold and silver were continually changing, there could be no ratio established between them which would prove stable and satisfactory for purposes of law. Therefore, the only way out of the difficulty, as he reasoned, was for the government to

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