The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1892-03-10
THE PRINCIPLES OF MONEY.

| tain WnaG laws are QeQlcaCcQ from
them.
In the first place experience teach.
es that money must have intrinsic
value. 1t has to be exchanged for
valuable goods, and hence must
possess value itself, as no man will
give something for nothing. The
earliest governments recognized this
fact. Whenever an attempt has
been made to circulate money with
out intrinsic value, it has produced
widespread evils and ended in fail
ure. Only thing of value can
measure value.
In the second place money must
be portable. Iron money was too
heavy. Oxen and sheep were too
bulky and cumbersome for the an
clients to carry about in their vest
pockets. Merchants of Sweden had
to use wheelbarrows when copper
was their currency in the last CEN
fury. In order to be portable mon
cy must be of high value, as large
sums of anything cheap, like corn
or iron would be too troublesome
and expensive TO transport.
In the third place money must be
indestructible. One of the incen-
tlves of man to work is that the FRO
ducts of his labor may be exchanged
for something of imperishable value;
something he may store away for a
rainy day or old age. The cattle
used as currency in past times was
subject to diseases which often caus-
ed them to perish, the weevils otter
destroyed the corn and the eggs and
Goldfish currency was often eaten up.
Experience gradually, as 1T seems,
taught men to use metals which
could not decay nor be destroyed.
In the fourth place, money must
be homogeneous, that is OF the same
quality, SO that equal weights will
have exactly the same value. This
is only attained by the use OF metals
which are assayed into uniform de-
grees of fineness.
Ia the fifth place money must be
devisable. IT sheep skin, COW
or a piece of cloth, divided or cut
up for small change, each part
would not be of equal value, nor
would the aggregate parts be equal
to an undivided whole. Hence this
sort of currency was inconvenient
for making small purchases. But
as the metal could be divided and
melted together again without effect
ing their value they were early re-
cognized as meeting this require
mont.
In the sixth place, money must
be stable in value. Where food or
tobacco or manufactured articles
were currency their value was daily
fluctuating, due to the variable sup.
ply and demand. Surprising cotton
to be currency, if a farmer had put
SO bales of it in the bank last Sep
TENDER. it would have been just
about half as valuable now, whereas
if he had deposited coin in the bank
last September, it would have been
just as valuable now. The supply
of cotton is seldom more than enough
to meet the demand for one season,
and hence each years crop affects
the demand and the price, whereas
the supply of the metals is the &C.
emulation of years of mining, and
one or ten years product of the
mines bears SO little proportion to
the whole supply that it only affects
the value slightly. The supply of
the precious metals is like the sup
ply of water in the ocean whose
depth is not perceptibly affected by
rain or drought. Of all things the
value OF gold and silver is the most
stable and therefore best adapted
for correctly measuring the value Of
labor and preserving the value OF
products.
Lastly money must be easily re-
cognized. When cattle, bullets and
beads were money it was very trou.
blesome to stop to weigh and test
each substance. For the sake Of
public convenience and public secur.