be used as a medium of exchange; but as it was cumbersome and unsteady in price, it too went out of use. The commodity employed as money does not go out of use until it is superseded by one of superior qualifications for the service. This is the natural law that governs the change from one kind of money to another. The fact that the Virginia colonist used tobacco as money was no indication of the stage of civilization he had reached; he merely used it to bridge over a period of scarcity of his own money,—which was silver, though gold was also in use in Virginia. His experience proves that if in our own case all our gold and silver were driven from the country, we should not be without money, though our new money would not have the efficiency of the old; we should have taken a step backward; while we would doubtless show great ingenuity in selecting new commodities for use as money, we should be in the position of a nation that had thrown away its improved tools and implements to take up those already cast aside. We might then accept the proposition of the Farmers' Alliance, and issue certificates against cattle, wheat, and corn, to be used as money. With the introduction of this money would come a new occupation, but an occupation without produc tiveness. Some of us would be detailed to go out and watch our new money, to see that the grain was not spoiling in the barns, and that pleuro-pneumonia had not got among the cattle. Our government might adopt excellent devices for the protection of this new money, but it could not prevent the sense of insecurity which pertains to a money of defective character. Should we adopt the Farmers' Alliance plan, it would not be the first time that cattle had done service as money. History records that this was the first form of money used in the world. Wherever the metals came into use as money, they soon supplanted all perishable and clumsy commodities, being particularly adapted to such use, in which nearly all of them have done service at one time or another. They have great durability, being almost indestructible; they can be divided into convenient-sized pieces for handling and for the pocket, and can be run back into bars, if desired, without loss of value. The final test of coined money is that it shall be worth as much when run into bars as when it is in coin. If it will stand that test, it is world-money,—and all coined money should stand it. Coin in constant circulation loses value by abrasion, but this does not alter the rule; the loss from wear must be made good in return for the service rendered, or the coin will become discredited money. There is but one exception to the otherwise inflexible rule that coin shall possess full intrinsic value, and that is as to the small coin used for change; this is purposely made light in order to keep it at home. In speaking of coin, or money, this change-money or token-money, will not be again referred to, unless specifically mentioned. We have seen that wherever metallic money came into use, it displaced all the cruder forms of money. But the line of advance did not end there. One metal displaced another, the incoming one always having greater efficiency than the outgoing one. Copper was the money of Rome in her earlier days, and is the legal money of China to-day. If we could know all the forms of money in the world, we should doubtless find that the baser metals are still in use in some places. The order of progress is that cach in turn shall drop out of use as money, and be put to other uses for which it is better fitted. The ever-increasing demand for more things and better things, calls for better implements and more and more intelligent methods of workmanship. The forces that control this movement are beyond our reach, as we shall do well to recognize, and so bring our feeble attempts at monetary legislation into harmony with them, instead of struggling to overcome them. If silver is now going out of use as money, in the natural way, we must let it go; we cannot stay it, and the attempt to do so can only involve us in trouble. If, when iron was in use as money, man had piled it away in vaults—as we have done with silver-and had kept it out of other uses, is it not plain that his action would have retarded the progress of civilization? In the development of a money adapted to the wants of man, silver and gold have come to be the money metals of the most advanced nations. The superior efficiency of these metals has been established by ages of use, but their qualifications are different. In the earlier stages of mercantile enterprise, silver sufficed for all the requirements of trade, but it proved inadequate to the demands and exigencies of that larger and more complex trade which we call commerce. Gold met these requirements more effectively, and it has become the money of commerce. The monetary similarity of silver and gold prevents the rapid displacement of the one metal by the other, while their monetary differences make both the metals useful at the same time in one country; so that we find silver retained in use by nations like England and Germany, though gold is the monetary standard. Indeed, it is hard to see how any nation could altogether discontinue the use of silver as money. Gold has always been more valuable than silver, hence less time is required to weigh or to count a given amount in gold, and when money has to be transported from one place to another, the carriage of gold costs less. It is because of such nice differences as these that the changes from one money to another have taken place, man always seizing upon the agency that will most pose and supply his need. now be hardly possible to business that is done in the world. To be compelled to use only silver money would be a check upon enterprise and a burden to commerce. effectually serve his pur- If a nation that had reached the gold stage of industrial development should adopt the single silver standard, it would surely be at a disadvantage in its commercial transactions with gold-standard nations. Silver is not only more cumbersome than gold, but has always been more fluctuating-of late years much more so than formerly. If we should adopt the single silver standard, it would put us on the monetary basis of Mexico and Russia; with these nations we should be at no disadvantage in our commercial |