New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1850-09-21

remember, is the degree OF benefit it will confer
pon the person or persons who are to consume it
That value il ia obvious will vary with every one
of the SO. 000 persons in the City who may chance
to purchase it. and will vary wiki the extremes Of
saving twenty human lives, las it may do on shp
board, for example and nothing at all, for the po
tatoes may stock larder already overstoekei
and be permitted 70 decay appropriated TO no bad
eicial purpose Whatsoever. As every one of the
twenty starving persons would gladly have given
Mt least $l00 00 for his share othe potatoes rather
than not have had them toe value Of the bushe
of potatoes is anything between oyPher and $780,
600.
Take more com plicated csus lis possible to
calculate bow much it coats down to tle fraction
of q cent Tor more properly, Of an hours laoor to
convey a man from New York 70 Albany On Htst
class steamboat the Isaac Newton the Hen
drick Hudson for ezample-tskiDg into account
the coat of construction, coat OF running the num-
Der OF persons regularly travelling among whom the
expense is 10 be divided, &c &c &c Bat who
will undertake to calculate she different values OF
trip mp the Hudson to the eight hundred or
thousand persons Tho gathered at the wharf at
the departure of one of these magnificent boats
One is Deglectipg his business at home and going
Oh speculation in which he will lose thousand
doIlarE. How much ig the trip worth TO him
There lie bridegroom and bride going OF to en-.
Joy the honeymoon. How much in hard money is
the trip worth to them There stands poor in
valid who hopes to recover little health by the
cool hreezes c the quiet river. Thera is a. young
man fresh from school just starting out 10 nee the
world and crafty his curiosity. There is q sharper
who will cheat somebody out of few hundreds
before be gets back, and so What is the Ualue
TO each of these Of trip up the Hudson Finan-
cers and Political Economists please answer. Re-
member that the value is the benefit 10 be done to
each. How big is piece Of chalk How much
Sc y,:d bIa7 far ia nd
yet, will the world believe it! all the political
economy, all the calculations OF finance, all the
banking, all the trading and commercial trsnssc.
tons in the world, are based upon the idea OF the
measure meBt and comparison OF c1tpes. Which
is the swe etest, love or sugar Which is the pref
test, canary bird or one OF Moorea melodies
Financiers and political economists please answer
Having eee en- what it s which money is supposed
to bs capable Of measuring, let US see what are
the capacities OF the yard-stick Itself Is il fixed
or esatic The theory Of those wis pretend 10
acme philosophy in the matter is that gold and ST.
yer are selected as standards OF vaue because the
quantity OF those commodities in the world ia more
uniform than that of most other Rrtioet that is it
ia sure to fuctuate less than that Of most other
ticles from year TO year. II the fact be granted,
then gold and silver have one Of the fitting proper.
tier Of a standard, if gold and silver alone were
used for currency But gold and silver are not
convenient as circulating medium. Hence paper
money ia assumed as o representative OF specie.
So far very well sgan. There was time when
bsnk-paper wac an exEctrepresentation Of spe3e,
if it represented nothing else. The old bank of
Amsterdam the mother Of the banking ayatem,
Issued only dollar for dollar. Her bla were mere
ly certificates Of deposit for so much specie SO
far, them the yard stick did not stretch nor contract
while the paper money was more convenient "a
medium Of circulation than the specie. But With
the development of the banking syssem two, three,
five or more dollars of paper money ere issued for
one dollar OF specie on depoait The amount is
then expanded and contracted according 10 the
fluctuations OF trade and the Judgments and spscu'
lsting nterests of perhaps five hundred different
boards of bank directors How is it, then, With the
il deXibility Of your standard Your yard stick ia
one year one foot long and the next year five feet
long The problem Of existing finance, then, s to
measure vauea which are in their nature positively
incapable OF measurement-by money, which ia in
its nature positiveIy incapable of measuring any
thing. 1t 10 therefore uacertatnty < luctuat!'R=
price.
There is no auch thing therefore in money as q
standard OF value. AZ a circulating medium mere
y considering no other properties nor the reasons
Why we should have g circulating medium at all,
nothing better can be devised than paper money.
1t 10 thin, light, plant and convenient in all re-
spects
To make gold the standard of cost, instead OF
value, would be to take as much gold as is ordi-
nsfily dug in an hour in those countries where 1t is
procured say California as the price Of an hour
labor in other branches of industry equally trouble
some and repugnant. Tbis may perhaps be oae
dollar,whicb would make the price of labor dollar
sn hour, and the difference between that price in
this article and the usual price oflabor In the
article, which s rendered necessary now, as the
means of acquiring all other commodities, in lndi
cation of the degree to which labor is ROBBED by
adopting the value standard instead OF the cost
standard Of price But the fact is that no average
of the product Of gold-digging can be- made 1t
ia proverbially uncertain Che product of gold,
therefore, regarded as standard of anything, i6
as nearly worthless as the product OF any arti
Gle can be. The demand for it in the arts 10 also
exceptional and uncertain. Apart from the faoti
sious demand resutingfrom the fact that it s ade
nominal standard and medium, it is not in any
aense a staple article. 1t would be just as phio-
sopbcal to measure all other industry by the pro-
duct Of the maokerel fishery or the manufacture of
rock candy or castor oil as it would be 20 measure
it by gold. The result Of all thia investigation is
therefore hs that the product of gold, and for the
same reason that of silver is quite unfit for the rst
purpose we have in view, which is to select sta
pie species OF labor with which TO compare other
labor whie corn or wheat doen fulfill those oon1i-
tons and, Q That paper is juit what ia wanted as
a circulating medium, provided 1t can be made to
rest upon proper basis and represent what ought
to be represented by circulating medium.
Now what is it which ought to be represented
by circulating medium Clearly it is price-lhe
price of commodities, 1--WE could always make al
equivalent exchange OF labor or Of commodities on
the spot, we should want no circulating medium. 1t
is because We cannot that We require something to
give in pledge OF future return OF an equivalent
commodity to that which We receive. The pledge
or premise should be exactly equivalent to, as 1t
stands in the place OF, the commodity or commodi
ties to be given hereafter These commodities,
which the paper stands in the place OF, are the
price OF what was received The equitable limit OF
price is, we have seep the cost Of the article re-
oeved The promise is therefore rightly the
equivalent Of or gees 10 the extent Of the cost OF
the article received But the cost of an article Is,
We have seen, the labor there ism it, righlymeas
ured. Every issue of the circulating medium
should therefore be a representative OF, or pledge
for, certain amount of human labor, or for some
conmodity which has in it en- equal amount of hu-