From the unequal proportion in which, in different employments, profits enter into the advances of the capitalist, and therefore into the returns required by him, two consequences follow in regard to value. (1). One is, that commodities do not exchange in the ratio simply of the quantities of labor required to produce them; not even if we allow for the unequal rates at which different kinds of labor are permanently remunerated.

(2.) A second consequence is, that every rise or fall of general profits will have an effect on values. Not, indeed, by raising or lowering them generally (which, as we have so often said, is a contradiction and an impossibility), but by altering the proportion in which the values of things are affected by the unequal lengths of time for which profit is due. When two things, though made by equal labor, are of unequal value because the one is called upon to yield profit for a greater number of years or months than the other, this difference of value will be greater when profits are greater, and less when they are less. The wine which has to yield five years' profit more than the cloth will surpass it in value much more if profits are forty per cent than if they are only twenty.

It follows from this that even a general rise of wages, when it involves a real increase in the cost of labor, does in some degree influence values. It does not affect them in the manner vulgarly supposed, by raising them universally; but an increase in the cost of labor lowers profits, and therefore lowers in natural values the things into which profits enter in a greater proportion than the average, and raises those into which they enter in a less proportion than the average. All commodities in the production of which machinery bears a large part, especially if the machinery is very durable, are lowered in their relative value when profits fall; or, what is equivalent, other things are raised in value relatively to them. This truth is sometimes expressed in a phraseology more plausible than sound, by saying that a rise of wages raises the value of things made by labor in comparison with those made by machinery. But things made by machinery, just as much as any other things, are made by labor—namely, the labor which made the machinery itself—the only difference being that profits enter somewhat more largely into the production of things for which machinery is used, though the principal item of the outlay is still labor.



6. Occasional Elements in Cost of Production; taxes and ground-rent.

Cost of Production consists of several elements, some of which are constant and universal, others occasional. The universal elements of cost of production are the wages of the labor, and the profits of the capital. The occasional elements are taxes, and any extra cost occasioned by a scarcity value of some of the requisites. Besides the natural and necessary elements in cost of production—labor and profits—there are others which are artificial and casual, as, for instance, a tax. The taxes on hops and malt are as much a part of the cost of production of those articles as the wages of the laborers. The expenses which the law imposes, as well as those which the nature of things imposes, must be reimbursed with the ordinary profit from the value of the produce, or the things will not continue to be produced. But the influence of taxation on value is subject to the same conditions as the influence of wages and of profits. It is not general taxation, but differential taxation, that produces the effect. If all productions were taxed so as to take an equal percentage from all profits, relative values would be in no way disturbed. If only a few commodities were taxed, their value would rise; and if only a few were left untaxed, their value would fall.

But the case in which scarcity value chiefly operates in adding to cost of production is the case of natural agents. These, when unappropriated, and to be had for the taking, do not enter into the cost of production, save to the extent of the labor which may be necessary to fit them for use. Even when appropriated, they do not (as we have already seen) bear a value from the mere fact of the appropriation, but only from scarcity—that is, from limitation of supply. But it is equally certain that they often do bear a scarcity value.

No one can deny that rent sometimes enters into cost of production [of other than agricultural products]. If I buy or rent a piece of ground, and build a cloth-manufactory on it, the ground-rent forms legitimately a part of my expenses of production, which must be repaid by the product. And since all factories are built on ground, and most of them in places where ground is peculiarly valuable, the rent paid for it must, on the average, be compensated in the values of all things made in factories. In what sense it is true that rent does not enter into the cost of production or affect the value of agricultural produce will be shown in the succeeding chapter.

These occasional elements in cost of production, such as taxes, insurance, ground-rent, etc., are to be considered as just so much of an increase in the quantity of capital required for the operation involved in the particular production, and, consequently, result in an increased cost of production, because there is either more abstinence, or abstinence for a longer time, to be rewarded. These elements, therefore, if they are not universal (or common to all articles), will affect the exchange value of commodities, wherever there is a free competition.



Chapter III. Of Rent, In Its Relation To Value.



1. Commodities which are susceptible of indefinite Multiplication, but not without increase of Cost. Law of their Value, Cost of Production in the most unfavorable existing circumstances.

We have investigated the laws which determine the value of two classes of commodities—the small class which, being limited to a definite quantity, have their value entirely determined by demand and supply, save that their cost of production (if they have any) constitutes a minimum below which they can not permanently fall; and the large class, which can be multiplied ad libitum by labor and capital, and of which the cost of production fixes the maximum as well as the minimum at which they can permanently exchange [if there be free competition]. But there is still a third kind of commodities to be considered—those which have, not one, but several costs of production; which can always be increased in quantity by labor and capital, but not by the same amount of labor and capital; of which so much may be produced at a given cost, but a further quantity not without a greater cost. These commodities form an intermediate class, partaking of the character of both the others. The principal of them is agricultural produce. We have already made abundant reference to the fundamental truth that in agriculture, the state of the art being given, doubling the labor does not double the produce; that, if an increased quantity of produce is required, the additional supply is obtained at a greater cost than the first. Where a hundred quarters of corn are all that is at present required from the lands of a given village, if the growth of population made it necessary to raise a hundred more, either by breaking up worse land now uncultivated, or by a more elaborate cultivation of the land already under the plow, the additional hundred, or some part of them, at least, might cost double or treble as much per quarter as the former supply.

If the first hundred quarters were all raised at the same expense (only the best land being cultivated), and if that expense would be remunerated with the ordinary profit by a price of 20s. the quarter, the natural price of wheat, so long as no more than that quantity was required, would be 20s.; and it could only rise above or fall below that price from vicissitudes of seasons, or other casual variations in supply. But if the population of the district advanced, a time would arrive when more than a hundred quarters would be necessary to feed it. We must suppose that there is no access to any foreign supply. By the hypothesis, no more than a hundred quarters can be produced in the district, unless by either bringing worse land into cultivation, or altering the system of culture to a more expensive one. Neither of these things will be done without a rise in price. This rise of price will gradually be brought about by the increasing demand. So long as the price has risen, but not risen enough to repay with the ordinary profit the cost of producing an additional quantity, the increased value of the limited supply partakes of the nature of a scarcity value. Suppose that it will not answer to cultivate the second best land, or land of the second degree of remoteness, for a less return than 25s. the quarter; and that this price is also necessary to remunerate the expensive operations by which an increased produce might be raised from land of the first quality. If so, the price will rise, through the increased demand, until it reaches 25s. That will now be the natural price; being the price without which the quantity, for which society has a demand at that price, will not be produced. At that price, however, society can go on for some time longer; could go on perhaps forever, if population did not increase. The price, having attained that point, will not again permanently recede (though it may fall temporarily from accidental abundance); nor will it advance further, so long as society can obtain the supply it requires without a second increase of the cost of production.

In the case supposed, different portions of the supply of corn have different costs of production. Though the twenty, or fifty, or one hundred and fifty quarters additional have been produced at a cost proportional to 25s., the original hundred quarters per annum are still produced at a cost only proportional to 20s. This is self-evident, if the original and the additional supply are produced on different qualities of land. It is equally true if they are produced on the same land. Suppose that land of the best quality, which produced one hundred quarters at 20s., has been made to produce one hundred and fifty by an expensive process, which it would not answer to undertake without a price of 25s. The cost which requires 25s. is incurred for the sake of fifty quarters alone: the first hundred might have continued forever to be produced at the original cost, and with the benefit, on that quantity, of the whole rise of price caused by the increased demand: no one, therefore, will incur the additional expense for the sake of the additional fifty, unless they alone will pay for the whole of it. The fifty, therefore, will be produced at their natural price, proportioned to the cost of their production; while the other hundred will now bring in 5s. a quarter more than their natural price—than the price corresponding to, and sufficing to remunerate, their lower cost of production.

If the production of any, even the smallest, portion of the supply requires as a necessary condition a certain price, that price will be obtained for all the rest. We are not able to buy one loaf cheaper than another because the corn from which it was made, being grown on a richer soil, has cost less to the grower. The value, therefore, of an article (meaning its natural, which is the same with its average value) is determined by the cost of that portion of the supply which is produced and brought to market at the greatest expense. This is the Law of Value of the third of the three classes into which all commodities are divided.



2. Such commodities, when Produced in circumstances more favorable, yield a Rent equal to the difference of Cost.

If the portion of produce raised in the most unfavorable circumstances obtains a value proportioned to its cost of production; all the portions raised in more favorable circumstances, selling as they must do at the same value, obtain a value more than proportioned to their cost of production.

The owners, however, of those portions of the produce enjoy a privilege; they obtain a value which yields them more than the ordinary profit. The advantage depends on the possession of a natural agent of peculiar quality, as, for instance, of more fertile land than that which determines the general value of the commodity; and when this natural agent is not owned by themselves, the person who does own it is able to exact from them, in the form of rent, the whole extra gain derived from its use. We are thus brought by another road to the Law of Rent, investigated in the concluding chapter of the Second Book. Rent, we again see, is the difference between the unequal returns to different parts of the capital employed on the soil. Whatever surplus any portion of agricultural capital produces, beyond what is produced by the same amount of capital on the worst soil, or under the most expensive mode of cultivation, which the existing demands of society compel a recourse to, that surplus will naturally be paid as rent from that capital, to the owner of the land on which it is employed.

The discussion of rent is here followed wholly from the point of view of value, while before (Book II, Chap. VI) the law of rent was reached through a limitation of the quantity of land due to the influence of population. In the former case the rent and produce were stated in bushels. By introducing price now (as the convenient symbol of value), instead of the separate increased demands of population in our illustration than used (p. 240), it will be seen how the same operation, looking at it solely in respect to value, brings us to the same law:

Price A B C D per Bushel. 24 18 12 6 bushels bushels bushels bushels Total Rent. Total Rent. Total Rent. Total value of value of value of value of product. product. product. product. $1.00 $24.00 $0.00 .... .... .... .... .... $1.33 $32.00 $8.00 $24.00 $0.00 .... .... .... $2.00 $48.00 $24.00 $36.00 $12.00 $24.00 $0.00 .... $4.00 $96.00 $72.00 $72.00 $48.00 $48.00 $24.00 $24.00

It was long thought by political economists, among the rest even by Adam Smith, that the produce of land is always at a monopoly value, because (they said), in addition to the ordinary rate of profit, it always yields something further for rent. This we now see to be erroneous. A thing can not be at a monopoly value when its supply can be increased to an indefinite extent if we are only willing to incur the cost. As long as there is any land fit for cultivation, which at the existing price can not be profitably cultivated at all, there must be some land a little better, which will yield the ordinary profit, but allow nothing for rent: and that land, if within the boundary of a farm, will be cultivated by the farmer; if not so, probably by the proprietor, or by some other person on sufferance. Some such land at least, under cultivation, there can scarcely fail to be.

Rent, therefore, forms no part of the cost of production which determines the value of agricultural produce. The land or the capital most unfavorably circumstanced among those actually employed, pays no rent, and that land or capital determines the cost of production which regulates the value of the whole produce. Thus rent is, as we have already seen, no cause of value, but the price of the privilege which the inequality of the returns to different portions of agricultural produce confers on all except the least favored portion.

Rent, in short, merely equalizes the profits of different farming capitals, by enabling the landlord to appropriate all extra gains occasioned by superiority of natural advantages. If all landlords were unanimously to forego their rent, they would but transfer it to the farmers, without benefiting the consumer; for the existing price of corn would still be an indispensable condition of the production of part of the existing supply, and if a part obtained that price the whole would obtain it. Rent, therefore, unless artificially increased by restrictive laws, is no burden on the consumer: it does not raise the price of corn, and is no otherwise a detriment to the public than inasmuch as if the state had retained it, or imposed an equivalent in the shape of a land-tax, it would then have been a fund applicable to general instead of private advantage.

The nationalization of the land, consequently, would not benefit the laboring-classes a whit through lowering the price to them, or any consumer, of food or agricultural produce.



3. Rent of Mines and Fisheries and ground-rent of Buildings, and cases of gain analogous to Rent.

Agricultural productions are not the only commodities which have several different costs of production at once, and which, in consequence of that difference, and in proportion to it, afford a rent. Mines are also an instance. Almost all kinds of raw material extracted from the interior of the earth—metals, coals, precious stones, etc.—are obtained from mines differing considerably in fertility—that is, yielding very different quantities of the product to the same quantity of labor and capital. There are, perhaps, cases in which it is impossible to extract from a particular vein, in a given time, more than a certain quantity of ore, because there is only a limited surface of the vein exposed, on which more than a certain number of laborers can not be simultaneously employed. But this is not true of all mines. In collieries, for example, some other cause of limitation must be sought for. In some instances the owners limit the quantity raised, in order not too rapidly to exhaust the mine; in others there are said to be combinations of owners, to keep up a monopoly price by limiting the production. Whatever be the causes, it is a fact that mines of different degrees of richness are in operation, and since the value of the produce must be proportional to the cost of production at the worst mine (fertility and situation taken together), it is more than proportional to that of the best. All mines superior in produce to the worst actually worked will yield, therefore, a rent equal to the excess. They may yield more; and the worst mine may itself yield a rent. Mines being comparatively few, their qualities do not graduate gently into one another, as the qualities of land do; and the demand may be such as to keep the value of the produce considerably above the cost of production at the worst mine now worked, without being sufficient to bring into operation a still worse. During the interval, the produce is really at a scarcity value.

Fisheries are another example. Fisheries in the open sea are not appropriated, but fisheries in lakes or rivers almost always are so, and likewise oyster-beds or other particular fishing-grounds on coasts. We may take salmon-fisheries as an example of the whole class. Some rivers are far more productive in salmon than others. None, however, without being exhausted, can supply more than a very limited demand. All others, therefore, will, if appropriated, afford a rent equal to the value of their superiority.

Both in the case of mines and of fisheries, the natural order of events is liable to be interrupted by the opening of a new mine, or a new fishery, of superior quality to some of those already in use. In this case, when things have permanently adjusted themselves, the result will be that the scale of qualities which supply the market will have been cut short at the lower end, while a new insertion will have been made in the scale at some point higher up; and the worst mine or fishery in use—the one which regulates the rents of the superior qualities and the value of the commodity—will be a mine or fishery of better quality than that by which they were previously regulated.

The ground-rent of a building, and the rent of a garden or park attached to it, will not be less than the rent which the same land would afford in agriculture, but may be greater than this to an indefinite amount; the surplus being either in consideration of beauty or of convenience, the convenience often consisting in superior facilities for pecuniary gain. Sites of remarkable beauty are generally limited in supply, and therefore, if in great demand, are at a scarcity value. Sites superior only in convenience are governed as to their value by the ordinary principles of rent. The ground-rent of a house in a small village is but little higher than the rent of a similar patch of ground in the open fields.

Suppose the various kinds of land to be represented by the alphabet; that those below O pay no agricultural rent, and that all lands increase in fertility and situation as we approach the beginning of the alphabet, but which, as far up as K, are used in agriculture; that higher than K all are more profitably used for building purposes, viz.:

A, B, C, ... K, L, M, N, O, ... X, Y, Z.

Now it will happen that land is chosen for building purposes irrespective of its fertility for agricultural purposes. It will not be true, as some may think, that no land will be used for building until it will pay a ground-rent greater than the greatest agricultural rent paid by any piece of land. It is not true, for example, if N be selected for a building-lot, that it must pay a ground-rent as high as the agricultural rent of K, the most fertile land cultivated in agriculture. It must pay a ground-rent higher only than it itself would pay, if cultivated. It is only necessary that it pay more than the same (not better) land would pay as rent if used only in agriculture.

The rents of wharfage, dock, and harbor room, water-power, and many other privileges, may be analyzed on similar principles. Take the case, for example, of a patent or exclusive privilege for the use of a process by which the cost of production is lessened. If the value of the product continues to be regulated by what it costs to those who are obliged to persist in the old process, the patentee will make an extra profit equal to the advantage which his process possesses over theirs. This extra profit is essentially similar to rent, and sometimes even assumes the form of it, the patentee allowing to other producers the use of his privilege in consideration of an annual payment.

The extra gains which any producer or dealer obtains through superior talents for business, or superior business arrangements, are very much of a similar kind. If all his competitors had the same advantages, and used them, the benefit would be transferred to their customers through the diminished value of the article; he only retains it for himself because he is able to bring his commodity to market at a lower cost, while its value is determined by a higher.(219)



4. Resume of the laws of value of each of the three classes of commodities.

A general resume of the laws of value, where a free movement of labor and capital exists, may now be briefly made in the following form:

Exchange value has three conditions, viz.: 1. Utility, or ability to satisfy a desire (U). 2. Difficulty of attainment (D), according to which there are three classes of commodities. 3. Transferableness.

Of the second condition, there are three classes: 1. Those limited in supply—e.g., ancient pictures or monopolized articles. 2. Those whose supply is capable of indefinite increase by the use of labor and capital. 3. Those whose supply is gained at a gradually increasing cost, under the law of diminishing returns.

Of those limited in supply, their value is regulated by Demand and Supply. The only limit is U.

Of those whose supply is capable of indefinite increase, their normal and permanent value is regulated by Cost of Production, and their temporary or market value is regulated by Demand and Supply, oscillating around Cost of Production (which consists of the amount of labor and abstinence required).

Of those whose supply is gained at a gradually increasing cost, their normal value is regulated by the Cost of Production of that portion of the whole amount of the whole amount needed, which is brought to market at the greatest expense, and their market value is regulated by Demand and Supply (as in class 2).

If there be no free competition between industries, then the value of those commodities which has been said, in the above classification, to depend on cost of production, will be governed by the law of Reciprocal Demand.



Chapter IV. Of Money.



1. The three functions of Money—a Common Denominator of Value, a Medium of Exchange, a "Standard of Value".

Having proceeded thus far in ascertaining the general laws of Value, without introducing the idea of Money (except occasionally for illustration), it is time that we should now superadd that idea, and consider in what manner the principles of the mutual interchange of commodities are affected by the use of what is termed a Medium of Exchange.

As Professor Jevons(220) has pointed out, money performs three distinct services, capable of being separated by the mind, and worthy of separate definition and explanation:

1. A Common Measure, or Common Denominator, of Value.

2. A Medium of Exchange.

3. A Standard of Value.

F. A. Walker,(221) however, says: "Money is the medium of exchange. Whatever performs this function, does this work, is money, no matter what it is made of.... That which does the money-work is the money-thing."

(1.) [If we had no money] the first and most obvious [inconvenience] would be the want of a common measure for values of different sorts. If a tailor had only coats, and wanted to buy bread or a horse, it would be very troublesome to ascertain how much bread he ought to obtain for a coat, or how many coats he should give for a horse. The calculation must be recommenced on different data every time he bartered his coats for a different kind of article, and there could be no current price or regular quotations of value. As it is much easier to compare different lengths by expressing them in a common language of feet and inches, so it is much easier to compare values by means of a common language of [dollars and cents].

The need of a common denominator of values (an excellent term, introduced by Storch), to whose terms the values of all other commodities may be reduced, and so compared, is as great as that the inhabitants of the different States of the United States should have a common language as a means by which ideas could be communicated to the whole nation. A man may have a horse, whose value he wishes to compare in some common term with the value of his house, although he might not wish to sell either. A valuation by the State for taxation could not exist but for this common denominator, or register, of value.

(2.) The second function is that of a medium of exchange. The distinction between this function and the common denominator of value is that the latter measures value, the former transfers value. The man owning the horse, after having measured its value by comparison with a given thing, may now wish to exchange it for other things. This discloses the need of another quality in money.

The inconveniences of barter are so great that, without some more commodious means of effecting exchanges, the division of employments could hardly have been carried to any considerable extent. A tailor, who had nothing but coats, might starve before he could find any person having bread to sell who wanted a coat: besides, he would not want as much bread at a time as would be worth a coat, and the coat could not be divided. Every person, therefore, would at all times hasten to dispose of his commodity in exchange for anything which, though it might not be fitted to his own immediate wants, was in great and general demand, and easily divisible, so that he might be sure of being able to purchase with it whatever was offered for sale. The thing which people would select to keep by them for making purchases must be one which, besides being divisible and generally desired, does not deteriorate by keeping. This reduces the choice to a small number of articles.

This need is well explained by the following facts furnished by Professor Jevons: "Some years since, Mademoiselle Zelie, a singer of the Theatre Lyrique at Paris, made a professional tour round the world, and gave a concert in the Society Islands. In exchange for an air from 'Norma' and a few other songs, she was to receive a third part of the receipts. When counted, her share was found to consist of three pigs, twenty-three turkeys, forty-four chickens, five thousand cocoanuts, besides considerable quantities of bananas, lemons, and oranges. In the Society Islands, however, pieces of money were very scarce; and, as mademoiselle could not consume any considerable portion of the receipts herself, it became necessary in the mean time to feed the pigs and poultry with the fruit."(222)

(3.) The third function desired of money is what is usually termed a "standard of value." It is, perhaps, better expressed by F. A. Walker(223) as a "standard of deferred payments." Its existence is due to the desire to have a means of comparing the purchasing power of a commodity at one time with its purchasing power at another distant time; that is, that for long contracts, exchanges may be in unchanged ratios at the beginning and at the end of the contracts. There is no distinction between this function and the first, except one arising from the introduction of time. At the same time and place, the "standard of value" is given in the common denominator of value.

A Measure of Value,(224) in the ordinary sense of the word measure, would mean something by comparison with which we may ascertain what is the value of any other thing. When we consider, further, that value itself is relative, and that two things are necessary to constitute it, independently of the third thing which is to measure it, we may define a Measure of Value to be something, by comparing with which any two other things, we may infer their value in relation to one another.

In this sense, any commodity will serve as a measure of value at a given time and place; since we can always infer the proportion in which things exchange for one another, when we know the proportion in which each exchanges for any third thing. To serve as a convenient measure of value is one of the functions of the commodity selected as a medium of exchange. It is in that commodity that the values of all other things are habitually estimated.

But the desideratum sought by political economists is not a measure of the value of things at the same time and place, but a measure of the value of the same thing at different times and places: something by comparison with which it may be known whether any given thing is of greater or less value now than a century ago, or in this country than in America or China. To enable the money price of a thing at two different periods to measure the quantity of things in general which it will exchange for, the same sum of money must correspond at both periods to the same quantity of things in general—that is, money must always have the same exchange value, the same general purchasing power. Now, not only is this not true of money, or of any other commodity, but we can not even suppose any state of circumstances in which it would be true.

It being very clear that money, or the precious metals, do not themselves remain absolutely stable in value for long periods, the only way in which a "standard of value" can be properly established is by the proposed "multiple standard of value," stated as follows:

"A number of articles in general use—corn, beef, potatoes, wool, cotton, silk, tea, sugar, coffee, indigo, timber, iron, coal, and others—shall be taken, in a definite quantity of each, so many pounds, or bushels, or cords, or yards, to form a standard required. The value of these articles, in the quantities specified, and all of standard quality, shall be ascertained monthly or weekly by Government, and the total sum [in money] which would then purchase this bill of goods shall be, thereupon, officially promulgated. Persons may then, if they choose, make their contracts for future payments in terms of this multiple or tabular standard."(225) A, who had borrowed $1,000 of B in 1870 for ten years, would make note of the total money value of all these articles composing the multiple standard, which we will suppose is $125 in 1870. Consequently, A would promise to pay B eight multiple units in ten years (that is, eight times $125, or $1,000). But, if other things change in value relatively to money during these ten years, the same sum of money—$1,000—in 1880 will not return to B the same just amount of purchasing power which he parted with in 1870. Now, if, in 1880, when his note falls due, the government list is examined, and it is found that commodities in general have fallen in value relatively to gold, the multiple unit will not amount to as much gold as it did in 1870; perhaps each unit may be rated only at $100. In that case, A is obliged to pay back but eight multiple units, which costs him only $800 in money, while B receives from A the same amount of purchasing power over other commodities which he loaned to him. B had no just claim to ten units, since the fall of all commodities relatively to gold was not due to his exertions. On the other hand, if, between 1870 and 1880, prices had risen, mutatis mutandis, the eight units would have cost A more than $1,000 in gold; but he would have been justly obliged to return the same amount of purchasing power to B which he received from him.



2. Gold and Silver, why fitted for those purposes.

By a tacit concurrence, almost all nations, at a very early period, fixed upon certain metals, and especially gold and silver, to serve this purpose. No other substances unite the necessary qualities in so great a degree, with so many subordinate advantages. These were the things which it most pleased every one to possess, and which there was most certainty of finding others willing to receive in exchange for any kind of produce. They were among the most imperishable of all substances. They were also portable, and, containing great value in small bulk, were easily hid; a consideration of much importance in an age of insecurity. Jewels are inferior to gold and silver in the quality of divisibility; and are of very various qualities, not to be accurately discriminated without great trouble. Gold and silver are eminently divisible, and, when pure, always of the same quality; and their purity may be ascertained and certified by a public authority.

Jevons(226) has more fully stated the requisites for a perfect money as—

1. Value. 2. Portability. 3. Indestructibility. 4. Homogeneity. 5. Divisibility. 6. Stability of value. 7. Cognizability.

Accordingly, though furs have been employed as money in some countries, cattle in others, in Chinese Tartary cubes of tea closely pressed together, the shells called cowries on the coast of Western Africa, and in Abyssinia at this day blocks of rock-salt, gold and silver have been generally preferred by nations which were able to obtain them, either by industry, commerce, or conquest. To the qualities which originally recommended them, another came to be added, the importance of which only unfolded itself by degrees. Of all commodities, they are among the least influenced by any of the causes which produce fluctuations of value. No commodity is quite free from such fluctuations. Gold and silver have sustained, since the beginning of history, one great permanent alteration of value, from the discovery of the American mines.

In the present age the opening of new sources of supply, so abundant as the Ural Mountains, California, and Australia, may be the commencement of another period of decline, on the limits of which it would be useless at present to speculate. But, on the whole, no commodities are so little exposed to causes of variation. They fluctuate less than almost any other things in their cost of production. And, from their durability, the total quantity in existence is at all times so great in proportion to the annual supply, that the effect on value even of a change in the cost of production is not sudden: a very long time being required to diminish materially the quantity in existence, and even to increase it very greatly not being a rapid process. Gold and silver, therefore, are more fit than any other commodity to be the subject of engagements for receiving or paying a given quantity at some distant period.

Since Mr. Mill wrote, two great changes in the production of the precious metals have occurred. The discoveries of gold, briefly referred to by him, have led to an enormous increase of the existing fund of gold (see chart No. IX, Chap. VI), and a fall in the value of gold within twenty years after the discoveries, according to Mr. Jevons's celebrated study,(227) of from nine to fifteen per cent. Another change took place, a change in the value, of silver, in 1876, which has resulted in a permanent fall of its value since that time (see chart No. X, Chap. VII). Before that date, silver sold at about 60d. per ounce in the central market of the world, London; and now it remains about 52d. per ounce, although it once fell to 47d., in July, 1876. In spite of Mr. Mill's expressions of confidence in their stability of value—although certainly more stable than other commodities—the events of the last thirty-five years have fully shown that neither gold nor silver—silver far less than gold—can successfully serve as a perfect "standard of value" for any considerable length of time.

When gold and silver had become virtually a medium of exchange, by becoming the things for which people generally sold, and with which they generally bought, whatever they had to sell or to buy, the contrivance of coining obviously suggested itself. By this process the metal was divided into convenient portions, of any degree of smallness, and bearing a recognized proportion to one another; and the trouble was saved of weighing and assaying at every change of possessors—an inconvenience which, on the occasion of small purchases, would soon have become insupportable. Governments found it their interest to take the operation into their own hands, and to interdict all coining by private persons.



3. Money a mere contrivance for facilitating exchanges, which does not affect the laws of value.

It must be evident, however, that the mere introduction of a particular mode of exchanging things for one another, by first exchanging a thing for money, and then exchanging the money for something else, makes no difference in the essential character of transactions. It is not with money that things are really purchased. Nobody's income (except that of the gold or silver miner) is derived from the precious metals. The [dollars or cents] which a person receives weekly or yearly are not what constitutes his income; they are a sort of tickets or orders which he can present for payment at any shop he pleases, and which entitle him to receive a certain value of any commodity that he makes choice of. The farmer pays his laborers and his landlord in these tickets, as the most convenient plan for himself and them; but their real income is their share of his corn, cattle, and hay, and it makes no essential difference whether he distributes it to them directly, or sells it for them and gives them the price. There can not, in short, be intrinsically a more insignificant thing, in the economy of society, than money; except in the character of a contrivance for sparing time and labor. It is a machine for doing quickly and commodiously what would be done, though less quickly and commodiously, without it; and, like many other kinds of machinery, it only exerts a distinct and independent influence of its own when it gets out of order.

The introduction of money does not interfere with the operation of any of the Laws of Value laid down in the preceding chapters. The reasons which make the temporary or market value of things depend on the demand and supply, and their average and permanent values upon their cost of production, are as applicable to a money system as to a system of barter. Things which by barter would exchange for one another will, if sold for money, sell for an equal amount of it, and so will exchange for one another still, though the process of exchanging them will consist of two operations instead of only one. The relations of commodities to one another remain unaltered by money; the only new relation introduced is their relation to money itself; how much or how little money they will exchange for; in other words, how the Exchange Value of money itself is determined. Money is a commodity, and its value is determined like that of other commodities, temporarily by demand and supply, permanently and on the average by cost of production.



Chapter V. Of The Value Of Money, As Dependent On Demand And Supply.



1. Value of Money, an ambiguous expression.

The Value of Money is to appearance an expression as precise, as free from possibility of misunderstanding, as any in science. The value of a thing is what it will exchange for; the value of money is what money will exchange for, the purchasing power of money. If prices are low, money will buy much of other things, and is of high value; if prices are high, it will buy little of other things, and is of low value. The value of money is inversely as general prices; falling as they rise, and rising as they fall. When one person lends to another, as well as when he pays wages or rent to another, what he transfers is not the mere money, but a right to a certain value of the produce of the country, to be selected at pleasure; the lender having first bought this right, by giving for it a portion of his capital. What he really lends is so much capital; the money is the mere instrument of transfer. But the capital usually passes from the lender to the receiver through the means either of money, or of an order to receive money, and at any rate it is in money that the capital is computed and estimated. Hence, borrowing capital is universally called borrowing money; the loan market is called the money market; those who have their capital disposable for investment on loan are called the moneyed class; and the equivalent given for the use of capital, or, in other words, interest, is not only called the interest of money, but, by a grosser perversion of terms, the value of money.



2. The Value of Money depends on its quantity.

The value or purchasing power of money depends, in the first instance, on demand and supply. But demand and supply, in relation to money, present themselves in a somewhat different shape from the demand and supply of other things.

The supply of a commodity means the quantity offered for sale. But it is not usual to speak of offering money for sale. People are not usually said to buy or sell money. This, however, is merely an accident of language. In point of fact, money is bought and sold like other things, whenever other things are bought and sold for money. Whoever sells corn, or tallow, or cotton, buys money. Whoever buys bread, or wine, or clothes, sells money to the dealer in those articles. The money with which people are offering to buy, is money offered for sale. The supply of money, then, is the quantity of it which people are wanting to lay out; that is, all the money they have in their possession, except what they are hoarding, or at least keeping by them as a reserve for future contingencies. The supply of money, in short, is all the money in circulation at the time.

The demand for money, again, consists of all the goods offered for sale. Every seller of goods is a buyer of money, and the goods he brings with him constitute his demand. The demand for money differs from the demand for other things in this, that it is limited only by the means of the purchaser.

In this last statement Mr. Mill is misled by his former definition of demand as "quantity demanded." He has the true idea of demand in this case regarding money; but the demand for money does not, as he thinks, differ from the demand for other things, inasmuch as, in our corrected view of demand for other things (p. 255), it was found that the demand for other things than money was also limited by the means of the purchaser.(228)

As the whole of the goods in the market compose the demand for money, so the whole of the money constitutes the demand for goods. The money and the goods are seeking each other for the purpose of being exchanged. They are reciprocally supply and demand to one another. It is indifferent whether, in characterizing the phenomena, we speak of the demand and supply of goods, or the supply and the demand of money. They are equivalent expressions.

Supposing the money in the hands of individuals to be increased, the wants and inclinations of the community collectively in respect to consumption remaining exactly the same, the increase of demand would reach all things equally, and there would be a universal rise of prices. Let us rather suppose, therefore, that to every pound, or shilling, or penny in the possession of any one, another pound, shilling, or penny were suddenly added. There would be an increased money demand, and consequently an increased money value, or price, for things of all sorts. This increased value would do no good to any one; would make no difference, except that of having to reckon [dollars and cents] in higher numbers. It would be an increase of values only as estimated in money, a thing only wanted to buy other things with; and would not enable any one to buy more of them than before. Prices would have risen in a certain ratio, and the value of money would have fallen in the same ratio.

It is to be remarked that this ratio would be precisely that in which the quantity of money had been increased. If the whole money in circulation was doubled, prices would be doubled. If it was only increased one fourth, prices would rise one fourth. There would be one fourth more money, all of which would be used to purchase goods of some description. When there had been time for the increased supply of money to reach all markets, or (according to the conventional metaphor) to permeate all the channels of circulation, all prices would have risen one fourth. But the general rise of price is independent of this diffusing and equalizing process. Even if some prices were raised more, and others less, the average rise would be one fourth. This is a necessary consequence of the fact that a fourth more money would have been given for only the same quantity of goods. General prices, therefore, would in any case be a fourth higher.

So that the value of money, other things being the same, varies inversely as its quantity; every increase of quantity lowering the value, and every diminution raising it, in a ratio exactly equivalent. This, it must be observed, is a property peculiar to money. We did not find it to be true of commodities generally, that every diminution of supply raised the value exactly in proportion to the deficiency, or that every increase lowered it in the precise ratio of the excess. Some things are usually affected in a greater ratio than that of the excess or deficiency, others usually in a less; because, in ordinary cases of demand, the desire, being for the thing itself, may be stronger or weaker; and the amount of what people are willing to expend on it, being in any case a limited quantity, may be affected in very unequal degrees by difficulty or facility of attainment. But in the case of money, which is desired as the means of universal purchase, the demand consists of everything which people have to sell; and the only limit to what they are willing to give, is the limit set by their having nothing more to offer. The whole of the goods being in any case exchanged for the whole of the money which comes into the market to be laid out, they will sell for less or more of it, exactly according as less or more is brought.



3. —Together with the Rapidity of Circulation.

It might be supposed that there is always in circulation in a country a quantity of money equal in value to the whole of the goods then and there on sale. But this would be a complete misapprehension. The money laid out is equal in value to the goods it purchases; but the quantity of money laid out is not the same thing with the quantity in circulation. As the money passes from hand to hand, the same piece of money is laid out many times before all the things on sale at one time are purchased and finally removed from the market; and each pound or dollar must be counted for as many pounds or dollars as the number of times it changes hands in order to effect this object.

If we assume the quantity of goods on sale, and the number of times those goods are resold, to be fixed quantities, the value of money will depend upon its quantity, together with the average number of times that each piece changes hands in the process. The whole of the goods sold (counting each resale of the same goods as so much added to the goods) have been exchanged for the whole of the money, multiplied by the number of purchases made on the average by each piece. Consequently, the amount of goods and of transactions being the same, the value of money is inversely as its quantity multiplied by what is called the rapidity of circulation. And the quantity of money in circulation is equal to the money value of all the goods sold, divided by the number which expresses the rapidity of circulation.

This may be expressed in mathematical language, where V is the value of money, Q is the quantity in circulation, and R the number expressing the rapidity of circulation, as follows:

V = 1 / (Q x R).

The phrase, rapidity of circulation, requires some comment. It must not be understood to mean the number of purchases made by each piece of money in a given time. Time is not the thing to be considered. The state of society may be such that each piece of money hardly performs more than one purchase in a year; but if this arises from the small number of transactions—from the small amount of business done, the want of activity in traffic, or because what traffic there is mostly takes place by barter—it constitutes no reason why prices should be lower, or the value of money higher. The essential point is, not how often the same money changes hands in a given time, but how often it changes hands in order to perform a given amount of traffic. We must compare the number of purchases made by the money in a given time, not with the time itself, but with the goods sold in that same time. If each piece of money changes hands on an average ten times while goods are sold to the value of a million sterling, it is evident that the money required to circulate those goods is L100,000. And, conversely, if the money in circulation is L100,000, and each piece changes hands, by the purchase of goods, ten times in a month, the sales of goods for money which take place every month must amount, on the average, to L1,000,000. [The essential point to be considered is] the average number of purchases made by each piece in order to affect a given pecuniary amount of transactions.

"There is no doubt that the rapidity of circulation varies very much between one country and another. A thrifty people with slight banking facilities, like the French, Swiss, Belgians, and Dutch, hoard coin much more than an improvident people like the English, or even a careful people, with a perfect banking system, like the Scotch. Many circumstances, too, affect the rapidity of circulation. Railways and rapid steamboats enable coin and bullion to be more swiftly remitted than of old; telegraphs prevent its needless removal, and the acceleration of the mails has a like effect." "So different are the commercial habits of different peoples, that there evidently exists no proportion whatever between the amount of currency in a country and the aggregate of the exchanges which can be effected by it."(229)



4. Explanations and Limitations of this Principle.

The proposition which we have laid down respecting the dependence of general prices upon the quantity of money in circulation must be understood as applying only to a state of things in which money—that is, gold or silver—is the exclusive instrument of exchange, and actually passes from hand to hand at every purchase, credit in any of its shapes being unknown. When credit comes into play as a means of purchasing, distinct from money in hand, we shall hereafter find that the connection between prices and the amount of the circulating medium is much less direct and intimate, and that such connection as does exist no longer admits of so simple a mode of expression. That an increase of the quantity of money raises prices, and a diminution lowers them, is the most elementary proposition in the theory of currency, and without it we should have no key to any of the others. In any state of things, however, except the simple and primitive one which we have supposed, the proposition is only true, other things being the same.

It is habitually assumed that whenever there is a greater amount of money in the country, or in existence, a rise of prices must necessarily follow. But this is by no means an inevitable consequence. In no commodity is it the quantity in existence, but the quantity offered for sale, that determines the value. Whatever may be the quantity of money in the country, only that part of it will affect prices which goes into the market of commodities, and is there actually exchanged against goods. Whatever increases the amount of this portion of the money in the country tends to raise prices.

This statement needs modification, since the change in the amounts of specie in the bank reserves, particularly of England and the United States, determines the amount of credit and purchasing power granted, and so affects prices in that way; but prices are affected not by this specie being actually exchanged against goods.

It frequently happens that money to a considerable amount is brought into the country, is there actually invested as capital, and again flows out, without having ever once acted upon the markets of commodities, but only upon the market of securities, or, as it is commonly though improperly called, the money market.

A foreigner landing in the country with a treasure might very probably prefer to invest his fortune at interest; which we shall suppose him to do in the most obvious way by becoming a competitor for a portion of the stock, railway debentures, mercantile bills, mortgages, etc., which are at all times in the hands of the public. By doing this he would raise the prices of those different securities, or in other words would lower the rate of interest; and since this would disturb the relation previously existing between the rate of interest on capital in the country itself and that in foreign countries, it would probably induce some of those who had floating capital seeking employment to send it abroad for foreign investment, rather than buy securities at home at the advanced price. As much money might thus go out as had previously come in, while the prices of commodities would have shown no trace of its temporary presence. This is a case highly deserving of attention; and it is a fact now beginning to be recognized that the passage of the precious metals from country to country is determined much more than was formerly supposed by the state of the loan market in different countries, and much less by the state of prices.

If there be, at any time, an increase in the number of money transactions, a thing continually liable to happen from differences in the activity of speculation, and even in the time of year (since certain kinds of business are transacted only at particular seasons), an increase of the currency which is only proportional to this increase of transactions, and is of no longer duration, has no tendency to raise prices.

For example, bankers in Eastern cities each year send in the autumn to the West, as the crops are gathered, very large sums of money, to settle transactions in the buying and selling of grain, wool, etc., but it again flows back to the great centers of business in a short time, in payment of purchases from Eastern merchants.



Chapter VI. Of The Value Of Money, As Dependent On Cost Of Production.



1. The value of Money, in a state of Freedom, conforms to the value of the Bullion contained in it.

But money, no more than commodities in general, has its value definitely determined by demand and supply. The ultimate regulator of its value is Cost of Production.

We are supposing, of course, that things are left to themselves. Governments have not always left things to themselves. It was, until lately, the policy of all governments to interdict the exportation and the melting of money; while, by encouraging the exportation and impeding the importation of other things, they endeavored to have a stream of money constantly flowing in. By this course they gratified two prejudices: they drew, or thought that they drew, more money into the country, which they believed to be tantamount to more wealth; and they gave, or thought that they gave, to all producers and dealers, high prices, which, though no real advantage, people are always inclined to suppose to be one.

We are, however, to suppose a state, not of artificial regulation, but of freedom. In that state, and assuming no charge to be made for coinage, the value of money will conform to the value of the bullion of which it is made. A pound-weight of gold or silver in coin, and the same weight in an ingot, will precisely exchange for one another. On the supposition of freedom, the metal can not be worth more in the state of bullion than of coin; for as it can be melted without any loss of time, and with hardly any expense, this would of course be done until the quantity in circulation was so much diminished as to equalize its value with that of the same weight in bullion. It may be thought, however, that the coin, though it can not be of less, may be, and being a manufactured article will naturally be, of greater value than the bullion contained in it, on the same principle on which linen cloth is of more value than an equal weight of linen yarn. This would be true, were it not that Government, in this country and in some others, coins money gratis for any one who furnishes the metal. If Government, however, throws the expense of coinage, as is reasonable, upon the holder, by making a charge to cover the expense (which is done by giving back rather less in coin than has been received in bullion, and is called levying a seigniorage), the coin will rise, to the extent of the seigniorage, above the value of the bullion. If the mint kept back one per cent, to pay the expense of coinage, it would be against the interest of the holders of bullion to have it coined, until the coin was more valuable than the bullion by at least that fraction. The coin, therefore, would be kept one per cent higher in value, which could only be by keeping it one per cent less in quantity, than if its coinage were gratuitous.

In the United States there was no charge for seigniorage on gold and silver to 1853, when one half of one per cent was charged as interest on the delay if coin was immediately delivered on the deposit of bullion; in 1873 it was reduced to one fifth of one per cent; and in 1875, by a provision of the Resumption Act, it was wholly abolished (the depositor, however, paying for the copper alloy). For the trade-dollars, as was consistent with their being only coined ingots and not legal money, a seigniorage was charged equal simply to the expense of coinage, which was one and a quarter per cent at Philadelphia, and one and a half per cent at San Francisco on the tale value.



2. —Which is determined by the cost of production.

The value of money, then, conforms permanently, and in a state of freedom almost immediately, to the value of the metal of which it is made; with the addition, or not, of the expenses of coinage, according as those expenses are borne by the individual or by the state.

To the majority of civilized countries gold and silver are foreign products: and the circumstances which govern the values of foreign products present some questions which we are not yet ready to examine. For the present, therefore, we must suppose the country which is the subject of our inquiries to be supplied with gold and silver by its own mines [as in the case of the United States], reserving for future consideration how far our conclusions require modification to adapt them to the more usual case.

Of the three classes into which commodities are divided—those absolutely limited in supply, those which may be had in unlimited quantity at a given cost of production, and those which may be had in unlimited quantity, but at an increasing cost of production—the precious metals, being the produce of mines, belong to the third class. Their natural value, therefore, is in the long run proportional to their cost of production in the most unfavorable existing circumstances, that is, at the worst mine which it is necessary to work in order to obtain the required supply. A pound weight of gold will, in the gold-producing countries, ultimately tend to exchange for as much of every other commodity as is produced at a cost equal to its own; meaning by its own cost the cost in labor and expense at the least productive sources of supply which the then existing demand makes it necessary to work. The average value of gold is made to conform to its natural value in the same manner as the values of other things are made to conform to their natural value. Suppose that it were selling above its natural value; that is, above the value which is an equivalent for the labor and expense of mining, and for the risks attending a branch of industry in which nine out of ten experiments have usually been failures. A part of the mass of floating capital which is on the lookout for investment would take the direction of mining enterprise; the supply would thus be increased, and the value would fall. If, on the contrary, it were selling below its natural value, miners would not be obtaining the ordinary profit; they would slacken their works; if the depreciation was great, some of the inferior mines would perhaps stop working altogether: and a falling off in the annual supply, preventing the annual wear and tear from being completely compensated, would by degrees reduce the quantity, and restore the value.

When examined more closely, the following are the details of the process: If gold is above its natural or cost value—the coin, as we have seen, conforming in its value to the bullion—money will be of high value, and the prices of all things, labor included, will be low. These low prices will lower the expenses of all producers; but, as their returns will also be lowered, no advantage will be obtained by any producer, except the producer of gold; whose returns from his mine, not depending on price, will be the same as before, and, his expenses being less, he will obtain extra profits, and will be stimulated to increase his production. E converso, if the metal is below its natural value; since this is as much as to say that prices are high, and the money expenses of all producers unusually great; for this, however, all other producers will be compensated by increased money returns; the miner alone will extract from his mine no more metal than before, while his expenses will be greater: his profits, therefore, being diminished or annihilated, he will diminish his production, if not abandon his employment.

In this manner it is that the value of money is made to conform to the cost of production of the metal of which it is made. It may be well, however, to repeat (what has been said before) that the adjustment takes a long time to effect, in the case of a commodity so generally desired and at the same time so durable as the precious metals. Being so largely used, not only as money but for plate and ornament, there is at all times a very large quantity of these metals in existence: while they are so slowly worn out that a comparatively small annual production is sufficient to keep up the supply, and to make any addition to it which may be required by the increase of goods to be circulated, or by the increased demand for gold and silver articles by wealthy consumers. Even if this small annual supply were stopped entirely, it would require many years to reduce the quantity so much as to make any very material difference in prices. The quantity may be increased much more rapidly than it can be diminished; but the increase must be very great before it can make itself much felt over such a mass of the precious metals as exists in the whole commercial world. And hence the effects of all changes in the conditions of production of the precious metals are at first, and continue to be for many years, questions of quantity only, with little reference to cost of production. More especially is this the case when, as at the present time, many new sources of supply have been simultaneously opened, most of them practicable by labor alone, without any capital in advance beyond a pickaxe and a week's food, and when the operations are as yet wholly experimental, the comparative permanent productiveness of the different sources being entirely unascertained.

For the facts in regard to the production of the precious metals, see the investigation by Dr. Adolf Soetbeer,(230) from which Chart IX has been taken. It is worthy of careful study. The figures in each period, at the top of the respective spaces, give the average annual production during those years. The last period has been added by me from figures taken from the reports of the Director of the United States Mint. Other accessible sources, for the production of the precious metals, are the tables in the appendices to the Report of the Committee to the House of Commons on the "Depreciation of Silver" (1876); the French official Proces-Verbaux of the International Monetary Conference of 1881, which give Soetbeer's figures to a later date than his publication above mentioned; the various papers in the British parliamentary documents; and the reports of the director of our mint. Since 1850 more gold has been produced than in the whole period preceding, from 1492 to 1850. Previous to 1849 the annual average product of gold, out of the total product of both gold and silver, was thirty-six per cent; for the twenty-six years ending in 1875, it has been seventy and one half per cent. The result has been a rise in gold prices certainly down to 1862,(231) as shown by the following chart. It will be observed how much higher the prices rose during the depression after 1858 than it was during a period of similar conditions after 1848. The result, it may be said, was predicted by Chevalier.(232)

Chart IX.

Chart showing the Production of the Precious Metals, according to Value, from 1493 to 1879.

Years. Silver. Gold. Total. 1493-1520 $2,115,000 $4,045,500 $6,160,500 1521-1544 4,059,000 4,994,000 9,053,000 1545-1560 14,022,000 5,935,500 19,957,500 1561-1580 13,477,500 4,770,750 18,248,250 1581-1600 18,850,500 5,147,500 23,998,000 1601-1620 19,030,500 5,942,750 24,973,250 1621-1640 17,712,000 5,789,250 23,501,250 1641-1660 16,483,500 6,117,000 22,600,500 1661-1680 15,165,000 6,458,750 21,623,750 1681-1700 15,385,500 7,508,500 22,894,000 1701-1720 16,002,000 8,942,000 24,944,000 1721-1740 19,404,000 13,308,250 32,712,250 1741-1760 23,991,500 17,165,500 41,157,000 1761-1780 29,373,250 14,441,750 43,815,000 1781-1800 39,557,750 12,408,500 51,966,250 1801-1810 40,236,750 12,400,000 52,636,750 1811-1820 24,334,750 7,983,000 32,317,750 1821-1830 20,725,250 9,915,750 30,641,000 1831-1840 26,840,250 14,151,500 40,991,750 1841-1850 35,118,750 38,194,250 73,313,000 1851-1855 39,875,250 137,766,750 177,642,000 1856-1860 40,724,500 143,725,250 184,449,750 1861-1865 49,551,750 129,123,250 178,675,000 1866-1870 60,258,750 133,850,000 194,108,750 1871-1875 88,624,000 119,045,750 207,669,750 1876-1879 110,575,000 119,710,000 230,285,000



Chart showing rise of average gold prices after the gold discoveries of 1849 to 1862.

The fall of prices from 1873 to 1879, owing to the commercial panic in the former year, however, is regarded, somewhat unjustly, in my opinion, as an evidence of an appreciation of gold. Mr. Giffen's paper in the "Statistical Journal," vol. xlii, is the basis on which Mr. Goschen founded an argument in the "Journal of the Institute of Bankers" (London), May, 1883, and which attracted considerable attention. On the other side, see Bourne, "Statistical Journal," vol. xlii. The claim that the value of gold has risen seems particularly hasty, especially when we consider that after the panics of 1857 and 1866 the value of money rose, for reasons not affecting gold, respectively fifteen and twenty-five per cent.

The very thing for which the precious metals are most recommended for use as the materials of money—their durability—is also the very thing which has, for all practical purposes, excepted them from the law of cost of production, and caused their value to depend practically upon the law of demand and supply. Their durability is the reason of the vast accumulations in existence, and this it is which makes the annual product very small in relation to the whole existing supply, and so prevents its value from conforming, except after a long term of years, to the cost of production of the annual supply.



3. This law, how related to the principle laid down in the preceding chapter.

Since, however, the value of money really conforms, like that of other things, though more slowly, to its cost of production, some political economists have objected altogether to the statement that the value of money depends on its quantity combined with the rapidity of circulation, which, they think, is assuming a law for money that does not exist for any other commodity, when the truth is that it is governed by the very same laws. To this we may answer, in the first place, that the statement in question assumes no peculiar law. It is simply the law of demand and supply, which is acknowledged to be applicable to all commodities, and which, in the case of money, as of most other things, is controlled, but not set aside, by the law of cost of production, since cost of production would have no effect on value if it could have none on supply. But, secondly, there really is, in one respect, a closer connection between the value of money and its quantity than between the values of other things and their quantity. The value of other things conforms to the changes in the cost of production, without requiring, as a condition, that there should be any actual alteration of the supply: the potential alteration is sufficient; and, if there even be an actual alteration, it is but a temporary one, except in so far as the altered value may make a difference in the demand, and so require an increase or diminution of supply, as a consequence, not a cause, of the alteration in value. Now, this is also true of gold and silver, considered as articles of expenditure for ornament and luxury; but it is not true of money. If the permanent cost of production of gold were reduced one fourth, it might happen that there would not be more of it bought for plate, gilding, or jewelry, than before; and if so, though the value would fall, the quantity extracted from the mines for these purposes would be no greater than previously. Not so with the portion used as money: that portion could not fall in value one fourth unless actually increased one fourth; for, at prices one fourth higher, one fourth more money would be required to make the accustomed purchases; and, if this were not forthcoming, some of the commodities would be without purchasers, and prices could not be kept up. Alterations, therefore, in the cost of production of the precious metals do not act upon the value of money except just in proportion as they increase or diminish its quantity; which can not be said of any other commodity. It would, therefore, I conceive, be an error, both scientifically and practically, to discard the proposition which asserts a connection between the value of money and its quantity.

There are cases, however, in which the potential change of the precious metals affects their value as money in the same way that it affects the value of other things. Such a case was the change in the value of silver in 1876. The usual causes assigned for that serious fall in value were the greatly increased production from the mines of Nevada; the demonetization of silver by Germany; and the decreased demand for export to India. It is true that the exports of silver from England to India fell off from about $32,000,000 in 1871-1872 to about $23,000,000 in 1874-1875; but none of the increased Nevada silver was exported from the United States to London, nor had Germany put more than $30,000,000 of her silver on the market;(233) and yet the price of silver so fell that the depreciation amounted to 20-1/4 per cent as compared with the average price between 1867 and 1872. The change in value, however, took place without any corresponding change in the actual quantity in circulation. The relation between prices and the quantities of the precious metals is, therefore, not so exact, certainly as regards silver, as Mr. Mill would have us believe; and thus their values conform more nearly to the general law of Demand and Supply in the same way that it affects things other than money.

It is evident, however, that the cost of production, in the long run, regulates the quantity; and that every country (temporary fluctuation excepted) will possess, and have in circulation, just that quantity of money which will perform all the exchanges required of it, consistently with maintaining a value conformable to its cost of production. The prices of things will, on the average, be such that money will exchange for its own cost in all other goods: and, precisely because the quantity can not be prevented from affecting the value, the quantity itself will (by a sort of self-acting machinery) be kept at the amount consistent with that standard of prices—at the amount necessary for performing, at those prices, all the business required of it.



Chapter VII. Of A Double Standard And Subsidiary Coins.



1. Objections to a Double Standard.

Though the qualities necessary to fit any commodity for being used as money are rarely united in any considerable perfection, there are two commodities which possess them in an eminent and nearly an equal degree—the two precious metals, as they are called—gold and silver. Some nations have accordingly attempted to compose their circulating medium of these two metals indiscriminately.

There is an obvious convenience in making use of the more costly metal for larger payments, and the cheaper one for smaller; and the only question relates to the mode in which this can best be done. The mode most frequently adopted has been to establish between the two metals a fixed proportion [to decide by law, for example, that sixteen grains of silver should be equivalent to one grain of gold]; and it being left free to every one who has a [dollar] to pay, either to pay it in the one metal or in the other.

If [their] natural or cost values always continued to bear the same ratio to one another, the arrangement would be unobjectionable. This, however, is far from being the fact. Gold and silver, though the least variable in value of all commodities, are not invariable, and do not always vary simultaneously. Silver, for example, was lowered in permanent value more than gold by the discovery of the American mines; and those small variations of value which take place occasionally do not affect both metals alike. Suppose such a variation to take place—the value of the two metals relatively to one another no longer agreeing with their rated proportion—one or other of them will now be rated below its bullion value, and there will be a profit to be made by melting it.

Suppose, for example, that gold rises in value relatively to silver, so that the quantity of gold in a sovereign is now worth more than the quantity of silver in twenty shillings. Two consequences will ensue. No debtor will any longer find it his interest to pay in gold. He will always pay in silver, because twenty shillings are a legal tender for a debt of one pound, and he can procure silver convertible into twenty shillings for less gold than that contained in a sovereign. The other consequence will be that, unless a sovereign can be sold for more than twenty shillings, all the sovereigns will be melted, since as bullion they will purchase a greater number of shillings than they exchange for as coin. The converse of all this would happen if silver, instead of gold, were the metal which had risen in comparative value. A sovereign would not now be worth so much as twenty shillings, and whoever had a pound to pay would prefer paying it by a sovereign; while the silver coins would be collected for the purpose of being melted, and sold as bullion for gold at their real value—that is, above the legal valuation. The money of the community, therefore, would never really consist of both metals, but of the one only which, at the particular time, best suited the interest of debtors; and the standard of the currency would be constantly liable to change from the one metal to the other, at a loss, on each change, of the expense of coinage on the metal which fell out of use.

This is the operation by which is carried into effect the law of Sir Thomas Gresham (a merchant of the time of Elizabeth) to the purport that "money of less value drives out money of more value," where both are legal payments among individuals. A celebrated instance is that where the clipped coins of England were received by the state on equal terms with new and perfect coin before 1695. They hanged men and women, but they did not prevent the operation of Gresham's law and the disappearance of the perfect coins. When the state refused the clipped coins at legal value, by no longer receiving them in payment of taxes, the trouble ceased.(234) Jevons gives a striking illustration of the same law: "At the time of the treaty of 1858 between Great Britain, the United States, and Japan, which partially opened up the last country to European traders, a very curious system of currency existed in Japan. The most valuable Japanese coin was the kobang, consisting of a thin oval disk of gold about two inches long, and one and a quarter inch wide, weighing two hundred grains, and ornamented in a very primitive manner. It was passing current in the towns of Japan for four silver itzebus, but was worth in English money about 18s. 5d., whereas the silver itzebu was equal only to about 1s. 4d. [four itzebus being worth in English money 5s. 4d.]. The earliest European traders enjoyed a rare opportunity for making profit. By buying up the kobangs at the native rating they trebled their money, until the natives, perceiving what was being done, withdrew from circulation the remainder of the gold."(235)

It appears, therefore, that the value of money is liable to more frequent fluctuations when both metals are a legal tender at a fixed valuation than when the exclusive standard of the currency is either gold or silver. Instead of being only affected by variations in the cost of production of one metal, it is subject to derangement from those of two. The particular kind of variation to which a currency is rendered more liable by having two legal standards is a fall of value, or what is commonly called a depreciation, since practically that one of the two metals will always be the standard of which the real has fallen below the rated value. If the tendency of the metals be to rise in value, all payments will be made in the one which has risen least; and, if to fall, then in that which has fallen most.

While liable to "more frequent fluctuations," prices do not follow the extreme fluctuations of both metals, as some suppose, and as is shown by the following diagram.(236) A represents the line of the value of gold, and B of silver, relatively to some third commodity represented by the horizontal line. Superposing these curves, C would show the line of extreme variations, while since prices would follow the metal which falls in value, D would show the actual course of variations. While the fluctuations are more frequent in D, they are less extreme than in C.



Chart showing the line of prices under a double standard.



2. The use of the two metals as money, and the management of Subsidiary Coins.

The plan of a double standard is still occasionally brought forward by here and there a writer or orator as a great improvement in currency.

It is probable that, with most of its adherents, its chief merit is its tendency to a sort of depreciation, there being at all times abundance of supporters for any mode, either open or covert, of lowering the standard. [But] the advantage without the disadvantages of a double standard seems to be best obtained by those nations with whom one only of the two metals is a legal tender, but the other also is coined, and allowed to pass for whatever value the market assigns to it.

When this plan is adopted, it is naturally the more costly metal which is left to be bought and sold as an article of commerce. But nations which, like England, adopt the more costly of the two as their standard, resort to a different expedient for retaining them both in circulation, namely (1), to make silver a legal tender, but only for small payments. In England no one can be compelled to receive silver in payment for a larger amount than forty shillings. With this regulation there is necessarily combined another, namely (2), that silver coin should be rated, in comparison with gold, somewhat above its intrinsic value; that there should not be, in twenty shillings, as much silver as is worth a sovereign; for, if there were, a very slight turn of the market in its favor would make it worth more than a sovereign, and it would be profitable to melt the silver coin. The overvaluation of the silver coin creates an inducement to buy silver and send it to the mint to be coined, since it is given back at a higher value than properly belongs to it; this, however, has been guarded against (3) by limiting the quantity of the silver coinage, which is not left, like that of gold, to the discretion of individuals, but is determined by the Government, and restricted to the amount supposed to be required for small payments. The only precaution necessary is, not to put so high a valuation upon the silver as to hold out a strong temptation to private coining.



3. The experience of the United States with a double standard from 1792 to 1883.

The experience of the United States with a double standard, extending as it does from 1792 to 1873 without a break, and from 1878 to the present time, is a most valuable source of instruction in regard to the practical working of bimetallism. While we have nominally had a double standard, in reality we have either had one alone, or been in a transition from one to the other standard; and the history of our coinage strikingly illustrates the truth that the natural values of the two metals, in spite of all legislation, so vary relatively to each other that a constant ratio can not be maintained for any length of time; and that "the poor money drives out the good," according to Gresham's statement. For clearness, the period may be divided, in accordance with the changes of legislation, into four divisions:

I. 1792-1834. Transition from gold to silver.

II. 1834-1853. Transition from silver to gold.

III. 1853-1878. Single gold currency (except 1862-1879, the paper period).

IV. 1878-1884. Transition from gold to silver.

I. With the establishment of the mint, Hamilton agreed upon the use of both gold and silver in our money, at a ratio of 15 to 1: that is, that the amount of pure silver in a dollar should be fifteen times the weight of gold in a dollar. So, while the various Spanish dollars then in circulation in the United States seemed to contain on the average about 371-1/4 grains of pure silver, and since Hamilton believed the relative market value of gold and silver to be about 1 to 15, he put 1/15 of 371-1/4 grains, or 24-3/4 grains of pure gold, into the gold dollar. It was the best possible example of the bimetallic system to be found, and the mint ratio was intended to conform to the market ratio. If this conformity could have been maintained, there would have been no disturbance. But a cause was already in operation affecting the supply of one of the metals—silver—wholly independent of legislation, and without correspondingly affecting gold.

Two periods of production of silver, in which the production of silver was great relatively to gold, stand out prominently in the history of that metal. (1) One was the enormous yield from the mines of the New World, continuing from 1545 to about 1640, and (2) the only other period of great production at all comparable with it (that is, as regards the production of silver relatively to gold) was that lasting from 1780 to 1820, due to the richness of the Mexican silver-mines. The first period of ninety-five years was longer than the second, which was only forty years; yet while about forty-seven times as much silver as gold was produced on an average during the first period, the average annual amount of silver produced relatively to gold was probably a little greater from 1780 to 1820. The effect of the first period in lowering the relation of silver to gold is well recognized in the history of the precious metals (see Chart X for the fall in the value of silver relatively to gold); that the effect of the second period on the value of silver has not been greater than was actually caused—it has not been small—is explicable only by the laws of the value of money. If you let the same amount of water into a small reservoir which you let into a large one, the level of the former will be raised more than the level of the latter. The great production of the first period was added to a very small existing stock of silver; that of the second period was added to a stock increased by the great previous production just mentioned. The smallness of the annual product relatively to the total quantity existing in the world requires some time, even for a production of silver forty-seven times greater than the gold production, to take its effect on the value of the total silver stock in existence. The effect of this process was beginning to be felt soon after the United States decided on a double standard. For this reason the value of silver was declining about 1800, and, although the annual silver product fell off seriously after 1820, the value of silver continued to decline even after that time, because the increased production, dating back to 1780, was just beginning to make itself felt. Thus we have the phenomenon—which seems very difficult for some persons to understand—of a falling off in the annual production of silver, accompanied by a decrease in its value relatively to gold.