The Canton times. (Canton, Miss.) 1893-1906, 1896-06-05
TRUE MONEY.


| Green before the Hartford board or
trade on March 20 is one of the clearest
statements Of the true functions of
money ever made. Col. Green is presi-
dent of the Connecticut Mutual Life In
surance company, said to be the largest
moneyed institution in New England.
We quote below a part of this most ex-
cellent speech:
Trade exists before money. Money is
born of the necessities of trade, and is
simply its instrument. And trade, no
| matter how complex its forms, how
narrow or how wide it's field, what the
range Of it's objects or the number OF
character of its instrumentalities and
incidents, is nothing else but the free,
willing exchange of one mans property
for that of another. The fundamental
fact, and the everlasting moral element
in such exchanges is this: No man
willingly exchanges his own valuable
commodity, his property, except for an
other commodity, another piece ofprop-
erty of at least equal value to him.
The whole principle and motive OF
honest trade and the absolute condition
of permanently prosperous trade are
property for property, substance for
substance, equal value for agreed equal
value Anything else, no matter how
phrased, is robbery of one or other of
the parties, and is Immediately destruc-
tive of real commerce, for 1t exhausts
the party who is made to get less than
he is made to give.
But the direct exchange or barter OF
scattered commodities by their respect
i've owners is a slow, laborious, costly
and inconvenient process. The problem
of trade is to bring the scattered owners
of needed commodities and the scat
tered consumers of them effectively to-
gether as seasonably, quickly and
cheaply as possible. All the manifold
instrumentalities Of commerce are
merely devices to that one end. And
the first necessity to that end is some
form and kind Of property so useful and
desirable to all men, no matter for what
special reason, and SO uniformly and
universally acceptable by them that
they will everywhere among these pro-
ducers and consumers readily exchange
for it any item Of property they wish
to exchange, knowing that it will, will
ingly and without loss, be taken in ex-
change for any other item Of property
they may happen to want and whenever
they may happen to wantit. That kind
Of property for which all other kinds
can be exchanged, which can buy and
sell all others, men call money. To-
serve this use most effectively and
economically it must possess in the
highest attainable degree certain quail
ties. 1t must have value, real usefulness
in itself, for men do not willingly trade
valuable for yalueless things. Tt must
keep it's value, for men will not trade
value for valueless thing merely be-
cause it once had value. They must
have the present substance and not the
mere tradition Of value. 1t must be as
invariable in value as possible that,
while it is kept on hand awaiting other
exchanges, it may lose as little as pos
sible of its power to buy other COM
modities. 1t must be as nearly imper-
ishable and indestructible as possible.
1t must have as small bulk as possible
consistent with sufficient abundance,
both for convenience of handling and
for safety and .cheapness of carriage.
It must be of a sort equally valuable,
equally desirable, equally acceptable
wherever men trade, else its purchasing
power is not everywhere equal, and its
function SO far fails.
Wherever men have advanced beyond
savagery they have by custom and COM
mon use adopted some then available
form of property, possessing more or
less of these qualities, as the medium
of their exchanges. So long as, for any
reason, that form has had recognized
value and acceptability as wide as the
range of trade of that time, it has
served its purpose, even IL imperfectly.
When it's acceptability has ceased, or
has ceased to be commensurate with the
field of trade, it has dropped out of use.
History is full of instances of disused
and abandoned moneys.
Whenever particular form of prop
erty has served as medium Of ex-
change it has necessarily become a
measure of the value of every item OF
property exchanged by its intervention-
When cowries were the medium every
thing else was valued in cowries. 1t
was the same way with sheep, cows,
cloths, hides, punches of shingles, etc.
So that intermediate kind or form of
property, by first exchanging for which
all other kinds of property are ex-
changed for each other, is for the time
being both medium of exchange and
a measure of value of the things ex-