Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

Book VI.

Finance, Industry, Trans

portation.

EARLY FORMS OF CURRENCY.

Skins of wild animals cured constitute one of the earliest forms of currency known, and while employed in the most ancient times, are not yet disused in some portions of the world. Such a medium seems appropriate among those who subsist by the chase, as all primeval peoples must in some degree, and it is not, therefore, surprising to find that in the transactions of the Hudson Bay Fur Company with the Indians, the unit of value by which the price of other articles was reckoned was the beaver skin.

East India, Siam, and among some of the islands of the Indian Archipelago. Among the Fijians whales' teeth pass readily from hand to hand, effecting all necessary interchanges, the red teeth being taken at about twenty times the value of the white ones.

Ornaments of all kinds have in all times constituted measures of value. In Egypt, Phoenicia, Etruria, and many other ancient countries, as well as in Ireland and Northumbria, rings have been found which were designed to serve the double purpose of ornament and currency, and the same dual function Pastoral people employ similarly the skins may be ascribed to the anklets, armlets, and of tame animals, originally delivering the en- earrings which are worn throughout British tire skin, a cumbrous process deficient in con- India, Persia, Egypt, and Abyssinia. The venience and economy, but finally employing a Goths and Celts fashioned their rings of thick small disc cut from the leather as a represent- golden wire wound in spirals, from which vaative of its value. Live stock is also widely rious lengths could be broken to accommodate employed, as it has been from the days of the varying needs of traffic. Gold chains have Abraham, and though a rude, it is still a sub- been similarly employed. In many countries stantially uniform, denominator of value. The golden beads are yet hoarded, worn, and circuGreeks stamped the image of an ox on a piece lated, fulfilling thus the triple functions of of leather, and the image had thence the cur- money, inasmuch as they constitute at once rent value of the animal represented. In the a store of value, a standard of value, and East, the camel, the ass, and the sheep have an instrument of exchange. Amber was been, ever since they were subdued to the uses used as currency by the savage races of of mankind, employed to reckon possessions the Baltic in the period of the Roman door determine the amount of tribute or marriage minion, as it still is in some of the regions portions. In Lapland and some portions of of the East. The Egyptian scarabee carved Sweden and Norway, the amount of wealth possessed by a person is denominated in reindeer. Among the Tartars the number of mares similarly determines the opulence of their possessors. Among the Esquimaux it is customary to speak of one another as worth so many dogs.

Šlaves have been employed to determine ratios of value since the state of bondage was first established among men. In New Guinea the slave is still the unit by which the value of other possessions is recorded, as he used to be among the Portuguese traders of the Gold Coast. The Portuguese also found small mats called libongoes, valued at about one and one half pence each, employed as currency on the African coast, and bunches of red feathers serve by their comparative stability to mark the fluctuations of yams and breech-clouts in some of the tropical islands of the Pacific. Some tribes of North American Indians found wampum as useful in their rather limited mercantile transactions as the merchant of South street or Burling slip finds greenbacks or bills of exchange.

Cowry shells are still extensively used in

on sard or nephrite or other precious stones, circulated freely throughout the Mediterranean coasts and islands probably before the first Phoenician coin was impressed; and engraved gems and precious stones were employed to transfer wealth as well from one country to another as from hand to hand until a comparatively recent period. In Africa ivory tusks pass to and fro in the processes of trade, rudely defining the ratio of value of other articles. Among the Tartars, bricks of tea, or cubes of that herb pressed into a solid form, pass from hand to hand as freely as beaver skins do at the trading posts of Hudson Bay or the Saskatchewan. Among the Malayans the only currency entirely equal to the requirements of trade consists of rough hardware, such as hoes, shovels, and the like. Pieces of cotton cloth of a fixed length, called Guinea cloth, for a long period constituted the unit of value in Senegal, Abyssinia, Mexico, Peru, Siberia, and some of the islands of the Pacific Ocean. Sumatra, cubes of beeswax of a fixed weight; in Scotland handmade nails; in Switzerland, eggs; in Newfoundland, dried codfish; in Virginia, tobacco; in Yucatan, cacao nuts; in

In

but, although a beautiful and valuable metal, possessing many of the qualities to render it acceptable as coin, its employment as money has been found to be impracticable.

the Greek Islands and the Levant, olive oil; in the regions of the Upper Nile, salt, have all, at one time or another, served the purposes of commercial interchange. In agricultural countries it is not strange that corn should have Great numbers of alloys have been employed early been adopted as a measure of value. The in coinage, and indeed it may be said that alleases of the great school foundations of Britain, most the entire system of metallic currency Cambridge, Oxford, and Eton, with probably throughout the world is composed of alloys. many others, were "corn leases," that is, The Tuscan sequin, the purest coin known in specifying that the rental should consist of so history, contained 999 parts of gold in 1,000. many quarters of corn. In Norway, corn is The six ducat piece of Naples was next in pudeposited in banks and lent and borrowed on rity, having only an alloy of 4, while old Bytime or call loans, as money is with us. In zantine coins called bezants contained an alloy Central America and Mexico, maize was long of 14 parts in 1000. Pure gold and silver, employed to serve the uses of currency. however, are soft metals, and untempered by In New England, in the early colonial days, others are subject to serious loss by abrasion. leaden bullets were employed to indicate value, They are, therefore, rendered more useful by and that metal is still coined and circulated in the admixture of a small portion of copper Burmah. Pewter has often been coined, and which, in the English system, in the case of in many countries, though not to the same ex- gold, may be expressed decimally by 916.66, tent as tin. In fact, tin coins are not only of and of silver 925 parts in 1,000. Nickel is immense antiquity, but their impress has been usually alloyed with three parts of copper, and sanctioned by government authority down to it is noteworthy that its adoption as a subsida recent period. The Phoenician mariners iary coinage in Germany, coincident with the freighted their galleys with the tin of Britain demonetization of silver, caused it to advance before Carthage was founded, and coins of the rapidly in price, while the latter was as rapidly same oiled the wheels of commerce in the marts declining. The old Roman as was made of the of Tyre and Sidon before Solomon built the mixed metal called as, a compound of copper temple at Jerusalem. In England, as late as and tin, and in quality and value not unlike the period of William and Mary, tin half-pence bronze. Brass was also extensively used from and farthings were struck, though they failed the time of Hiram of Tyre to that of the Emto become a permanent part of the circulation. peror Otho. The old Kings of Northumbria In numismatical collections, series of tin coins coined a small money called stycas out of a stamped with the effigy and legend of sev-natural alloy, composed of copper, zinc, gold, eral of the Roman emperors are abundant. In Java as well as Mexico, tin coins were once current, and the metal, measured by weight, is still a sort of legal tender in the Straits of Malacca.

METALLIC COINS.

In all civilized countries, gold, silver, and copper have always constituted the main elements of coinage and the most familiar forms of currency. The ratio of value between the first two has probably varied less during the last 2,500 years than that between any other known substances. Copper has fluctuated more, but its function has always been subsidiary and limited to small transactions. In the hierarchy of the metals used as coins, gold may represent the king, silver the lord, and copper the slave. The latter is now practically emancipated, bronze and nickel taking its place. Indium, osmium, and palladium have been proposed as substitutes for gold, and aluminum and manganese for silver, but without any practical result thus far. Platinum, which is mainly found in the Ural Mountains, has been coined to some extent by the Russian government;

silver, lead, and tin, which the metallurgists of that rude northern coast had not enough chemical skill to separate.

Lycurgus established an iron coinage for Lacedæmon, not only making the coins of such weight and bulk as to forbid their export, but depriving them of their metallic value by causing them while heated to be plunged into vinegar, thereby destroying their malleability.

While these coins were the largest of which historic mention is made, the Portuguese rei, too small to be actually coined, is doubtless the smallest unit of value in the money systems of the world. It is only about the nineteenth part of an English penny, and is considerably smaller than the Chinese cash, which, of actual coins, is perhaps of the lowest value known. In Sweden, during the last century, huge squares of copper, weighing between three and four pounds, with a stamp in each corner and one in the center, were issued as coin, and curious specimens of them may still be seen in numismatical collections. These, with the Maundy money, a small portion of which is still annually struck at the British Mint, and distributed by Her Majesty in alms, probably

represent the extremest variation of dimen- rency, or keeping silver at a constant ratio sions known among modern systems of coin- with gold. The combination was formed by age, the smallest piece of the Maundy money a union of France, Italy, Belgium, and Switbeing a silver penny. zerland.

The Chinese probably illustrate in the most The possible depreciation of silver was foreextreme manner the length to which loose seen, and some of its fluctuations had been views concerning currency can be carried. The experienced, but it was thought that, by a history of their currency presents that mingling close union of silver-using powers rating silver of the grotesque with the tragic which most of at a common value, its price could be made their actions have when viewed through West-permanent. At first the combination proceeded ern eyes. Coined money was known among boldly. It threw open the mints of the Union them as early as the eleventh century before to bullion owners, declaring that it would coin Christ, but their inability to comprehend the silver at the ratio to gold that it had estabprinciples upon which a currency should be lished of fifteen and one half to one, and probased has led them into all sorts of extrava- claimed that the coins thus issued should have gances, which have been attended by dis- in the markets both a legal tender efficiency order, famine, and bloodshed. Coins came at and an intrinsic efficiency in exchange exactly last to be made so thin that one thousand of represented by that proportion. them piled together were only three inches The plan worked well until the year 1873, high; then gold and silver were abandoned, and when Germany demonetized silver. But in the copper, tin, shells, skins, stones, and paper were meantime it was sought to give the double given a fixed value and used until, by abuse, standard a broader foundation by bringing all the advantages to be derived from the use other nations into the combination. For of money were lost, and there was nothing left this purpose, at the invitation of the French for the people to do but to go back to barter, government, forty-five representatives of twenand this they did more than once. They can- ty-three countries met at Paris, in 1867. not be said now to have a coinage; 2900 The proposed double standard was examined years ago they made round coins with a and discussed from every point of view by square hole in the middle, and they have since men skilled in financial science, and was at made no advance beyond that. The wellknown cash is a cast brass coin of that description, and although it is valued at about one mill and a half of United States money, and has to be strung in lots of one thousand to be computed with any ease, it is the sole measure of value and legal tender of the country. Spanish, Mexican, and the new trade dollars of the United States are employed in China; they pass because they are necessary for larger operations, and because faith in their standard value has become established; but they are current simply as stamped ingots, with their weight and fineness indicated.

The coined money of Great Britain is the most elegantly executed, and among the purest in the world. The greater part of the continental coinage is poorly executed and basely alloyed. In Holland, and most of the German states, the coins legally current as silver money are apparently one third brass, and resemble the counterfeit shillings and sixpences of a former period in England. In France and Belgium, the new gold and silver coins are handsome, and so likewise are the large gold and silver pieces of Prussia. The coins and medals executed by direction of Napoleon in France are in a high style of art.

The Latin Monetary Union was established in December, 1865, for the purpose of maintaining the double standard of metallic cur

last rejected by a vote of forty-three to two. In 1870, there was a second gathering of the same kind, which, by a smaller majority, arrived at the same conclusion. Meantime silver had begun to accumulate, and depreciation to foreshadow itself more clearly. The demonetization of the metal by Germany gave the first sharp alarm. The Union was immediately forced to limit the coinage for 1874 to $24,000,000. This was increased to $30,000,000 in 1875, but again reduced in 1876 to $24,000,000, and in 1877, to $11,600,000. In the meantime, also, France, Belgium, and Switzerland stopped the coinage of five-franc pieces, thus reducing what silver they had to a large subsidiary currency. Later signs of the dissolution of the Union with the defeat of its objects were supplied by the failure of the monetary conference at Paris, and by the withdrawal of Switzerland from the Union.

GREAT BRITAIN, COINED MONEY
OF.

In Great Britain, money of the current and standard coinage is frequently signified by the term sterling, as "one pound sterling," etc. With respect to the origin of the word sterling there are three opinions. The first is that it is derived from Stirling Castle, and that Edward I., having penetrated so far into Scotland, caused a coin to be struck there, which he

called Stirling. The second opinion derives | AMERICAN COINAGE, EARLY. it from the figure of a bird called starling, The earliest coinage that can be called Amerwhich appears about the cross in the ancient ican, in the sense of Anglo-American, was arms of England. The third most probably assigns its true origin, by deducing it from Esterling; for in the time of Henry III., it is called Moneta Esterlingorum, the money of the Esterlings or people of the East, who came hither to refine the silver of which it was made, and hence it was valued more than any other coin, on account of the purity of its substance. The denomination of the weights and their parts is of the Saxon or Esterling tongue, as pound, shilling, penny, and farthing, which are so called in their language to the present day. The term sterling is now disused in England in all ordinary transactions, but is still used in Scotland to distinguish sums from the ancient money of the country, as referred to in old deeds and notices of pecuniary transactions. The old Scots' money, previous to the Union of 1707, was in pounds, shillings, and pence, but these were only a twelfth of the value of sterling money of the same denomination; thus a pound Scots was only twenty pence sterling. The word sterling is also in use in the colonies, to distinguish the legal standard of Great Britain from the currency money in these places.

It is customary to estimate the purity of gold by an imaginary standard of 24 carats. If in a piece of gold weighing 24 carats there be 1-24th of alloy, then the piece is one below the standard. What is called jewelers' gold is seldom purer than 20 fine to 4 of alloy the alloy being usually silver, but sometimes copper, which gives a deeper red tinge to the metal. Perfectly pure gold is never seen either in trinkets or coins, for it is too ductile, and for that and other reasons requires a certain quantity of alloy. Sovereigns, and other modern English gold coins, contain one twelfth of alloy, but this twelfth is not reckoned as gold in point of value. At present the gold coin of Great Britain is issued at very nearly its precise market value as bullion. A pound weight of gold of 22 carats fineness produces coins to the amount of 46 pounds, 14 shillings, and 6 pence, which is about the price at which bullion sells for in the market. Thus the gold of that country is coined free of expense. In coining silver, the government is allowed by the Act of 56, George III., a profit or seigniorage of about 6 per cent.; the pound weight of silver, which should produce 62 shillings, being coined into 66 shillings. The silver coins being therefore of a little less real value than the sums they represent, they are not liable to be melted down by silversmiths for the manufacture of articles in their trade.

ordered by the original Virginia Company only
five years after the founding of Jamestown.
The coin was minted at Somers Island, now
known as the Bermudas. For a long while
the standard currency of Virginia was tobacco,
as in many of the early settlements of the
Northwest it was beaver skins, and other pelts
reckoned as worth such a fraction of a beaver
skin or so many beaver skins. In 1645 the
Assembly of the Virginia Colony, after a pre-
amble reciting that "It had maturely weighed
and considered how advantageous a quoine
would be to this colony, and the great wants
and miseries which do daily happen unto it by
the sole dependency upon tobacco," provided
for the issue of copper coins of the denomina-
tion of twopence, threepence, sixpence, and
ninepence; but this law was never carried
into effect, so that the first colonial coinage of
America was that struck off by Massachusetts
under the order of the General Court of that
colony, passed May 27, 1652, creating a "mint
house" at Boston, and providing for the mint-
age of "twelvepence, sixpence, and threepence
pieces, which shall be for forme flatt, and
stamped on the one side with N. E., and on
the other side with xiid., vid., and iiid., ac-
cording to the value of each pence." In 1662
from this same mint appeared the famous
" 'pine tree shillings," which were twopenny
pieces, having a pine tree on one side. This
mint was maintained for thirty-four years.
the reign of William and Mary copper coins
were struck in England for New England and
Carolina. Lord Baltimore had silver shillings,
sixpences, and fourpences made in England to
supply the demand of his province in Mary-
land. Vermont and Connecticut established
mints in 1785 for the issue of copper coin.
New Jersey followed a year later. But Con-
gress had the establishment of a mint for the
confederated States under advisement, and in
this same year agreed upon a plan submitted by
Thomas Jefferson, and the act went into opera-
tion on a small scale in 1787. After the adop-
tion of the Constitution of the United States in
1789 all the state mints were closed; as the
Constitution specifically places the sole power
of coining money in the Federal Government.
The gold pieces are:

In

1. The double eagle, or $20 piece. Coinage of the double eagle was authorized by the Act of March 3, 1849. Its weight is 516 grains. Its fineness is 900. (This technical form of expression means that 900 parts in 1,000 are pure metal, the other 100 parts are alloy.) The amount of coinage of the double

« ForrigeFortsæt »