The Indianapolis journal., 1896-10-12

ratio between the number of producers and
that of consumers of any article in the
market. This ratio is not affected. directly
or indirectly, by the volume of the cur
rercy. Money" he says, serves us COM
monty by its exchange, never almost by it's
consumption and he adds in direct con-
tradiction to the theory held and promul-
gated by Mr.. Bryan Chat the only honest
dollar is a stable doIlar): Though the use
men make of money be not in it's consump-
ton, yet ii has not at all more stand
ing, settled value, in exchange with any
other thing, than any other commodity
has"
The idea that legislation has power to
alter the value of money moves him to
mirth. "These men," he says, 'thave found
cut by cunning project how, by the re-
straint of law, to make the price of
money one-third cheaper, and then they
tell John a Nokes that he shall have e10,0oO
| of it to employ in merchandise or clothing;
and John a Stiles shall have G20, 600 more to
pay his debts; and so distribute this money
as freely Diego did his legacies. which
they are to have, even where they can get
them. But till these men can instruct the
forward borrowers where they shall be
furnished. they have perhaps dcne some
thing to increase mems desire, but not
made money one jot easier TO come by; and,
till they do that, all this sweet jingling of
money in their discourses just goes on to
the tune of If all the world were, oat-
meal.''
This is all very entertaining and in
structive but the interest for us here and
new of Lockes teachings the subject
| of money eliminates in his discussion of
| the nature and effect of clipping" or
| raising" coii Money is raised in the
sense which he attaches to the word, when
| It's nominal value exceeds its actual value.
| What he means by raised coin is what We
| mean by deprecated coin. Whenever coin
| has two values one actual and one NOM
| inal, we may of course fix our minds upon
| either; tf.e nominal value is raised when
| the actual value falls. Clipping was an un-
| authorized method of raising coin, closely
allied to counterfeiting. Every student of
English history knows that it once so
common and serious an evil as to demand
the severest measures for it's repression, so
that it was treated as capital offense, be-
ing such en encroachment upon the prerog-
ativc of the crown as to smack of veritable
treason. Any alteration in the legal stand
ard of value which has the effect to de-
preciate the mint valuation of the coin of
the realm is, the part of the crown,
equivalent to clipping by private persons.
Against this folly Locke inveghs with
restrained power of logic almost amounting
to intellectual passion. Nearly all that he
says about t is susceptible of direct appli-
cation to existing conditions in the United
States and to the financial controversy
which will decide the presidential election
next month.
| Locke was not bimetallist a believ-
| er in the so-called double Standard
| appears from his remark that silver, and
| silver alone, is the measure of commerce."
mt n Al IA.
| and silver was far less plentiful than now.
| 1.-TWO metals. gold and silver, cannot
| be the measure of commerce both together
| in any country; because the measure of
| commerce must be perpetually the same,
| invariable, and keeping the same proper
| ton in all its parts. But so only one metal
does or can do, to itself; silver is to
silver and gold to gold. An ounce of silver
| is always of equal value to an ounce of sill
i yer and ounce of gold to an ounce of
/ gold and two ounces of the one or other
| of double value to an ounce of the same
| But gold and silver change their value one
4 to another; and one may as well make a
measure ". g. yard, whose parts lengthen
| and shrink, as a measure of trade of ma
| terials that have not always,a settled inva-
| riable value to one another. He therefore
| desired that silver might alone be recog
| nized the legal standard of valuation,
| and gold be treated as commodity. But
/ he cautioned his readers that "the value
| Of silver, considered as money and the
| measure of commerce. is nothing but its
! quantity" Nobody he thinks. ''can be so
senseless as to imagine that nineteen grains
or ounces of silver shall at the same time
exchange for, or buy as much corn, oil or
| wine as twenty which is to raise it to the
/ value of twenty The just effect, he tells
4
| not one-half. is proposed in the Chicago
platform-will be to rob all creditors of
one-twentieth of their debts, and all land
lords of one-twentieth of their quit-rents
| forever" The second will be that ''men will
| presently raise their commodities ) per
| cent, so that if yesterday 20 crowns would
| exchange for twenty bushels of wheat or
/ twenty yards of certain sort of cloth, if
! you will to-day coin current crowns one
4 twentieth lighter and make them the
| standard you will find 20 crowns will ex-
| change for but nineteen bushels of wheat
i or nineteen yards of cloth, which will be
! just much for bushel as yesterday"
/ Silver will be "of no more real value by
| your giving the same denomination to a
| less quantity of it it is impossible to
| state this principle more clearly than Locke
| states it in the words: so much as you
4 lessen your coin. so much more you must
pay in tale, as will make the quantity of
4 silver the merchant expects for his commo-
! dity under what denomination soever he re-
ceives it, and again: If you make your
money less in weight. it must be made up
/ in tale'-that is, in the number of pieces
paid out. The raising of money lis in
| effect nothing but giving a denomina ton
/ of more pence to the same quantity Of sill
| ver Whether you call the piece coined
| twelve pence or fifteen pence or sixty pence
| or seventy-five. a crown a scepter it will
| buy no more silk. salt or bread than it
] would before. 1t is silver by it's quantity,
| and not denomination, that is the price of
| things
| Locke meets the familiar objection to this
| self-evident truth, that clipped coin is ac-
| cepted, in many transactions. at its face
| valuation, by observing that clipped and
| unciipped money will always buy an equal
| quantity OF anything else long as they
will without sLruDle change one for an
other" 1t is ''all one to the seller. whether
he receives his money in clipped money or
no. so it be but current But ''if the
quantity of your clipped coin be once grown
so great that the foreign merchant cannot
Gf he has "a mind to it, easily get weight
4 - IL.