practice of savages; its habitual exercise is
inconsistent with the existence of civilised
society; it is the grand original motive power
of WAR, even of that war which has just been
checked.

But secondly; if you are just, and will
make no wrongful use of the strength given
you, when you are in want of shoes you will
search after a person who has more pairs
than he requires himself, ami you will induce
him to part with the needful supply by offering
him in exchange a quantity, to be agreed
upon by mutual consent, of your own excess
of bread-stuffs. Tempted by such a proviso
as this, he will gladly give up the stipulated
shoes; he will even thank you for the
accommodation to himself; he will invite you to a
renewal of the friendly interchange. More
than that; perhaps at some future time he
will consent to advance you shoes on credit,
remembering that, possibly, one of these days
he may have to ask you to give him credit
for penny rolls. This is barter, or commerce,
or TRADE and its effects; without its exercise,
civilised society is impossible; it is the most
influential persuader of PEACE. The peace
which has just been brought about, like
almost every other peace, owes much to the
necessitous want of trade felt by some, at
least, of the belligerents.

Barter, then, or trade, being so excellent,
desirable, and necessary a thing, the next
point is to simplify and aid it as much as
possible — to make its machinery work
smoothly, without unwieldy jerks or blank
full-stops. Sacks of corn are heavy, hides
and jack-boots are cumbrous, to carry about
from place to place to be given in exchange
for whatever you want. To avoid the
inconveniences of actual barter, and at the same
time to secure the benefits resulting from it,
you look out for some general representative
of value, called money, which may help to
facilitate your dealings. What shall be that
representative, that money, is the important
problem you have now to solve. It must be
something portable, not liable to waste or
loss, easily divisible into portions to serve
for small amounts, and at the same time of
sufficient intrinsic value to be used for the
payment of larger sums. Various material
objects have been tried— rare shells, pearls,
and jewels compose one category, the precious
metals another. Against the three first
articles there lies the grand objection of their
indivisibility when of high value, and their
consequent uselessness to serve as small
change. The very first — namely, shells,
though handy counters to fulfil humble
claims, are cumbrous in the condition of
accumulated cash. Wheat would make just as
good a circulating medium as cowries; it has
intrinsic worth, is easily divided into
fractional quantities, and is a money which would
pass, or go (that is, its value would be
recognised), far and wide, wherever wheat was
known and eaten. Consequently, gold, silver,
and copper, in various states of purity or
alloy, as dust, in ingots, or as coin, have been
fixed upon as money by the civilised world,
because they represent value in the three
several grades of high, moderate, and low;
because they can be adapted to any
proportion or system of subdivision, by the
processes of the mint, because they are little
liable to waste or destruction, and are also
not likely to be suddenly increased or
diminished in any considerable quantity;
that is, they are not subject to great
fluctuations of intrinsic value.

But the radical defect of all money hitherto
discovered is its inability to serve as a
standard of value. It is a measure, but not the
fixed and standard measure, of the values of
the commodities it represents. If only a unit
of value could be calculated which should
prove as determinate a measure of worth as
the French metre, or even the English footrule
is of extension, it would be an immense
advantage gained to commerce— it would
simplify business transactions incalculably
and marvellously. But as yet, sovereigns,
francs, or cents, are no more than the most
preferable approximative measures of value
that can be devised. The government in each
respective state may do its best to compel
the fixity of the worth of those metals which
constitute its coin; but success has ever been
very far indeed from attending their efforts.

For all commodities are said to be dear or
cheap upon a given spot, according as they
are more or less in request on that spot: that
is, according as they are more or less
abundant, — according as they are more or less
easy to be had. But gold and silver, not to
mention copper, are themselves marketable
commodities; they shift their place, are
carried hither and thither, are made to abound
in one locality while they are scarce in
another, and therefore become dear or cheap
in their turn, even like the goods which they
represent. This variation takes place quite
irrespective of the varying abundance with
which they are extracted from the earth at
different epochs and in different regions,
which constitutes an additional agent in
causing fluctuations in their market price.
It is, therefore, a palpable fallacy to state
that the precious metals are the standard by
which all other commodoties are measured.
Other commodities measure them, as much as
they measure the commodities; and it is no
contradiction of terms to say, that they
themselves are dear or cheap, as the case may be.
The State may stamp its reverse and obverse
on coin as a warrant of the metal's purity;
but it cannot prevent a guinea, issued at
twenty-one shillings, from rising in price to
six-and-twenty. Between money and goods
there are mutual actions and reactions, alternate
varying attractive forces, just as much
as there are between the earth and the moon.

Again, trade increases, productions are
multiplied, because the surface of the world