Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1896-05-15

l judges the address of Colonel Jacob l.. 1 Greene, before the Hartford board of trade on March 28, is one of the clear est statements of the true functions of money ever made Colonel Greene is president of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance company, said to be the l largest moneyed institution in New Eng land. We quote below part of this most excellent speech:
 Trade exists before money. Money is born of the necessities of trade, and is simply its instrument. And trade, no matter how complex it's forms, how narrow or how wide its field, what the range of it's objects or the number or character of its instrumentalities and 1 incidents, is nothing else but the free. willing exchange of one mans property l for that of another The fundamental fact, and the everlasting moral element in such exchanges, is this: No man will ingly exchanges his own valuable com modify, his property, except for another commodity, another piece of property of | at least equal value to him.
 The whole principle and motive of honest trade and the absolute condition Of permanently prosperous trade are 1 property for property, substance for sub- stance, equal value for agreed equal value. Anything else, nc matter how phrased, is robbery of one or other of the parties. and is immediately destruc- tive of real commerce, for it exhausts the party who is made to get less than he is made to give.
 But the direct exchange or barter of l scattered commodities by their respec- tive owners is q slow, laborious, costly and inconvenient process. The problem of trade is to bring the scattered own CTS 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 producers and consumers readily exchange for it any item of property they wish to ex- change, knowing that it will, willingly and without loss, be taken ill exchange for any other item of property they may happen to want and whenever they may happen to want it. That kind of prop erty 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, 1t must possess in the highest attain 1 able degree certain qualities. It must have value, real usefulness ill itself, for men do not willingly trade valuable for valueless things. It must keep its value for men will not trade value for valuC less thing merely because it once had value They must have the present sub stance and not the mere tradition of value It must be as inyariable i'll value as possible-that, while it is kept on hand awaiting other exchanges, 1t may lose as little as possible of its power to buy other commodities. 1t must be as nearly impeEishable and indestructible as possible. It must have as small bulk
 
 abundance, both for convenience of handling and for safety and cheapness of carriage It must be of sort of equally valuable, equally desirable equally acceptable wherever men trade else its purchasing power is not every where equal, and it's function so far fails
 XVbarava3. ,aoa1 haya adUapcad havOud 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 IS the range of trade of that time, it has served it's purpose eyel if 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 a medium Of eX change, it has necessarily become 6 measure of the value of every item of property exchanged by its intervention When cowries were the medium, ev erything else was valued i'll cowries. It 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 exchanged for each other is for the time being both medium of exchange and measure of value of the things exchanged.
 Whenever a money has been kind of property which existed ill natural units, like cowries, arrowheads, sheep or other like sort, the conventional unit Of exchange has been the natural unit by which the count of quantity would be made. But when the extension of the field of trade and the changed wants of men have compelled such refinements i'll the quality, bulk and convenience of the n AL