If, then, prices are controlled by the volume of money available for use; and if the general level of prices will rise as the volume of money is increased, and fall as the volume of money is diminished, and rise or fall in an exact ratio corresponding with the expansion or contraction of the volume of money, it becomes important to ascertain what money is, and also whether there is anything which can be used as a substitute for money in such a manner as to affect the general level of prices.

Senator John P. Jones, than whom there is no one better informed, says:

The money of a country is that thing, whatever it may be, which is commonly accepted in exchange for labor or property and in payment of debt, whether so accepted by force of law or by universal consent. Its value does not arise from the intrinsic qualities which the material of which it is made may possess, but depends entirely on extrinsic qualities which law or common consent may confer.

Aristotle says:

Money has value only by law and not by nature; so that a change of convention between those who use it is sufficient to deprive it of its value and power to satisfy our wants.

Adam Smith says:

A guinea may be considered a bill for a certain quantity of goods on all the tradesmen in the neighborhood.

Henry Thornton says:

Money of every kind is an order for goods. It is so considered by the laborer when he receives it, and it is almost instantly converted into money's worth. It is merely the instrument by which the purchasable stock of the country is distributed with convenience and advantage among the several members of the community.

John Stuart Mill says:

The pounds or shillings which a man receives are a sort of ticket or order which he may present for payment at any shop he pleases, and which entitles him to receive a certain value of any commodity that he may choose.

Appleton's Cyclopaedia defines money in the following words:

Anything which freely circulates from hand to hand, in any country, as a common, acceptable medium of exchange, is, in such country, money, even though it ceases to be such, or to possess any value, when passing into another country. In a word, an article is determined to be money by reason of the performance by it of certain functions, without regard to its form or substance.

Francis A. Walker says:

Money is that which freely passes from hand to hand through the community in final discharge of debt and in full payment for commodities, being accepted equally without reference to the character or credit of the person who offers it, and without the intention of the person who receives it, to consume it, or enjoy it, or apply it to any other use than in turn to tender it to others in discharge of debts or in payment for commodities.

It has been contended by certain economists that bank checks and bills of exchange are money, or, at least, that they discharge the money function and act on prices the same as money; but this definition excludes checks and bills of exchange. A bill of exchange or bank check is not accepted without reference to the character or credit of the person who offers it. But Francis A. Walker leaves us in no doubt on this question. On page 123 of his work on "Political Economy" he says:

Money is a medium of exchange. Whatever performs this function, does this work, is money, no matter what it is made of, and no matter how it came to be a medium at first, or why it continues to be such. So long as, in any community, there is an article which all producers take freely and as a matter of course in exchange for whatever they have to sell, instead of looking about, at the time, for the particular things they, themselves, wish to consume, that article is money, be it white, yellow, or black, hard or soft, animal, vegetable, or mineral. There is no other test of money than this. That which does the money work is the money thing. It may do this well; it may do this ill. It may be good money; it may be bad money; but it is money all the same. We said all producers, since it is not enough that a thing is extensively used in exchange, to constitute it money. Bank checks are used in numerous and important transactions, yet are not money. It is essential to money that its acceptability should be so nearly universal that practically every person in the community who has any product or service to dispose of will freely, gladly, and of preference, take this thing money, instead of the particular products or service which he may individually require from others, being well assured that with money he will unfailingly obtain whatever he shall desire, in form and amount, and at times to suit his wants.

It appears from the accepted definitions that bank checks and bills of exchange are not money. They may to some extent, as other forms of credit may to some extent, add to or increase the rapidity of circulation; but, certainly, credit is not money nor does it possess the essential elements of money. I think it is an essential element of money that when used it closes the transaction between the parties to the transaction. In other words, money, when paid in the purchase of a commodity, closes the transaction, and neither party to the transaction has any further claim or demand against the other. Anything which does this (barter, of course, excluded) is money, and anything which fails to do this is not money. If a credit is given or a check received the transaction is not closed until the debt is paid or the check cashed. I do not find that any economist has made this distinction, in so many words, between money and credit, but I am satisfied that it exists.

Does all the money available for use act on prices? It is contended by a certain class of economists that only money of ultimate and final redemption—in other words, gold and silver, in countries where gold and silver are the standard money, and gold only, in countries where gold is the standard money—can act directly on prices, and that other forms of money can only act on prices in an indirect manner, and to the extent only that they may increase the rapidity of the circulation of redemption or standard money; that paper money, whether convertible or inconvertible, covered or uncovered, and token money, can have no direct influence on the general level of prices.

Is this contention true? We have already seen that money is a medium of exchange, a counter for reckoning, an order for goods, and that its value does not depend upon the intrinsic qualities which the material out of which it is made may possess, but depends entirely upon extrinsic qualities which law or common consent may confer, and that anything (barter, of course, excluded) that closes transactions between the parties to the transactions, is money; and also that the value of money, that is, its purchasing power, is fixed and regulated by the amount of money available for use. Why, then, should any part of the money that possesses and discharges all the functions of money be excluded? What peculiar property has money stamped on gold and silver that it only can act on prices?

John Stuart Mill says:

After experience had shown that pieces of paper, of no intrinsic value, by merely bearing upon them the written profession of being equivalent to a certain number of francs, dollars, or pounds, could be made to circulate as such, and to produce all the benefit to the users which could have been produced by the coins which they purported to represent, governments began to think that it would be a happy device if they could appropriate to themselves this benefit, free from the condition to which individuals issuing such paper substitutes for money were subject, of giving, when required, for the sign, the thing signified. They determined to try whether they could not emancipate themselves from this unpleasant obligation, and make a piece of paper issued by them pass for a pound, by merely calling it a pound and consenting to receive it in payment for taxes. And such is the influence of almost all established governments, that they have generally succeeded in attaining this object: I believe I may say they have always succeeded for a time, and the power has only been lost to them after they had compromised it by the most flagrant abuse.—"Political Economy," Book 3, Chap. 13.

Mill further says that such inconvertible paper money will act on prices. And if inconvertible paper money will act on prices, why will not convertible paper money, that is, paper money convertible into coin on demand, also act on prices? Token money, especially if a legal tender, and whether a legal tender or not, if accepted without objection in the payment of debt, or if received in full payment for commodities, discharges the money function, and is to all intents and purposes money. It is not absolutely necessary that to make a thing money it should be a legal tender in the payment of debt. Anything which is commonly accepted in exchange for labor or property and in payment of debt, whether so accepted by force of law (that is, its legal tender property) or by common consent, is money. From 1861 to 1873 we had no gold or silver money in the United States, or virtually none. The official reports of the Secretary of the Treasury show that the gold and silver coin, including the gold and silver bullion in the United States Treasury during that period, amounted to but $25,000,000, and even that was not in circulation, except to a very limited extent on the Pacific Coast. Yet during that period prices reached the highest level ever attained in this country. Certainly, the level of prices during that period was not fixed by the gold and silver money available for use. In view of the foregoing facts I think it must be apparent that any money which is received in full payment for commodities, whether so received on account of its legal tender property or by universal consent, and whether it is gold, silver, paper, or token money, acts on prices, and tends to fix the general level of prices.

It is claimed by a great many writers on political economy that credit has the same influence in fixing the general level of prices that money has, and that an expansion or contraction of credit would inflate or contract prices in the same manner and to the same extent as would result from a contraction or expansion of money; that if credit is extended, if more commodities are sold on credit than formerly, such extension of credit will tend to raise prices in the same manner and to the same extent as would so much additional money; and that if credits are contracted, if less credits are given than formerly, such contraction of credits will tend to depress prices in the same manner and to the same extent as a withdrawal of a like amount of money from the channels of trade would depress them. At the head of this school of political economists stands John Stuart Mill. He says:

I apprehend that bank notes, bills, or cheques, as such, do not act on prices at all. What does act on prices is credit, in whatever shape given, and whether it gives rise to any transferable instruments capable of passing into circulation or not. (See Book 3, Chapter 12.)

Is this contention true? If so, then it is not true that the general level of prices is determined by the amount of money available for use; but is determined, rather, by the amount of credits available for use. The debts of the world (and the credits, of course, are precisely equal to the debts, as there could be no debt without a corresponding credit) amount, in round numbers, to $200,000,000,000, and the money in the world amounts in round numbers to $10,000,000,000. That is, there are twenty dollars of credit to one dollar of money; and if credit exercises the same influence in fixing the general level of prices that money exercises, then it is absurd to say that the volume of money available for use fixes the general level of prices, and at the same time to contend that credit, dollar for dollar, is an equal factor in fixing prices. If credit affects the general level of prices in the same manner and to the same extent that money does, then credit exerts an influence on prices twenty times greater than that exerted by money, and we should say: The general level of prices is fixed by credit, modified, it may be, to some extent by the amount of money in circulation.

The difficulty seems to be in distinguishing between money and credit. If we keep in mind the fact that anything which closes the transaction between the parties to the transaction (barter excluded) is money, and anything which leaves something still to be done is credit, we shall have no difficulty in making the distinction.

Can credit affect the general level of prices? One of the most familiar and common illustrations given by those who contend that credit will raise the general level of prices, is that of a man entering the market to buy cotton.

They say: "Suppose a person with $5,000 in money enters the cotton market, and with his money purchases $5,000 worth of cotton. His demand for cotton and his purchase of $5,000 worth will tend to advance or stimulate the price of cotton." "Now," they say, "suppose he has a credit of $5,000 and with this credit he purchases an additional $5,000 worth of cotton. The second purchase, made on credit," they contend, "will tend to still further advance the price of cotton in the same manner and to the same extent that the cash purchase did." Is this true?

Let us suppose that he purchased the second bunch of cotton on ninety days' time. At the end of the ninety days he must pay for this cotton. If he draws the $5,000 with which he pays this debt from money invested in the cotton trade, the withdrawal of that sum from money invested in that industry will tend to depress the price of cotton to the extent that it was stimulated by the credit. If he withdraws it from the grain trade or from some other industry, the withdrawal of that sum of money will tend to depress prices in the industry from which it is withdrawn to the same extent as the cotton industry was stimulated by the credit. Whether the money to pay the debt is taken from the cotton industry or from some other industry, the general level of prices has not been raised. The purchase in the first instance may have temporarily stimulated the price of cotton, but if the payment of the debt is made from money drawn from that industry, it will depress the price of cotton to where it was before the credit purchase was made; and if the payment is made from money drawn from some other industry, it will depress prices in that industry to the same extent that the price of cotton was stimulated. In either event the general level of prices remains the same. It is like robbing Peter to pay Paul. It may make Paul richer, but how about Peter? There is no more wealth in existence than before the robbery was committed.

Again, it is claimed that credit stimulates prices by causing commodities which are sold on credit to be sold for higher prices than commodities of the same value are sold for when sold for cash. It is true that sales on credit are, as a rule, at a higher price than sales for cash in hand. Why is this so? For two reasons:

1st. Business done on credit is always attended with considerable risk. Even when the utmost caution is exercised, bad debts will be made, and a greater margin on sales is necessary.

2nd. When time is given a certain amount must be added to the price of the goods to compensate the seller for the use of his capital between the date of sale and the maturity of the account.

The additional price, thus received, is of no advantage to the producer or to the seller of the commodity. The addition to the price is consumed by losses from bad debts and in interest on capital. In fact, the additional prices charged, when properly analyzed, are not for the goods, but for the risk on the credit and for interest on capital. The net selling price of the commodity is not increased. Experience has proven that men who sell for the lesser price for cash in hand are more apt to succeed than those who charge the higher rate on the credit system.

Credit is always burdened with interest. If interest is not directly charged, the goods are sold at an advance on the cash price equal to the interest, which amounts to the same thing. Interest acts on commerce like friction on machinery. As friction absorbs a portion of the motive power, so interest absorbs a part of the value of all commodities sold on credit. Interest, the necessary accompaniment of credit, produces no wealth; but, on the contrary, absorbs wealth and tends to concentrate it in the hands of the few; and, necessarily, in the same ratio it takes from the masses the power to purchase the things they desire and would otherwise consume. Its ultimate result must be to lower prices. Credit burdened with interest, as it always is, may temporarily increase the demand for a certain commodity and consequently temporarily raise its price; but it must do this at the expense of other commodities. Like a stimulant administered to a human being, it may produce spasmodic results of extraordinary power; but when the stimulant has spent its force it leaves the individual weaker and in a worse condition than he was before the stimulant was administered.

Henry Thornton, an English economist, attempts to prove that a bill of exchange is money, and that, being money, it acts on prices. He says:

Let us imagine a farmer in the country to discharge a debt of L10 to his neighboring grocer by giving him a bill for that sum, drawn on his corn-factor in London, for grain sold in the metropolis; and the grocer to transmit the bill, he having previously indorsed it, to a neighboring sugar-baker in discharge of a like debt; and the sugar-baker to send it, when again indorsed, to a West India merchant in an outport; and the West India merchant to deliver it to his country banker, who also indorses it and sends it into further circulation. The bill in this case will have effected five payments, exactly as if it were a L10 note payable to the bearer on demand. A multitude of bills pass this way between traders in the country, in the manner which has been described; and they evidently form in the strictest sense a part of the circulating medium of the kingdom.

Mill in his "Political Economy" quotes this illustration with approval. Is the conclusion arrived at correct?

Suppose that instead of a bill of exchange for L10, a horse worth L10 had been made use of, and the farmer had delivered the horse to the grocer in satisfaction of his debt, and the grocer had turned it over to the sugar-baker, and the sugar-baker to the West India merchant, etc. The horse would have paid the five debts in precisely the same manner that the bill of exchange did, but would such a use of the horse have made the horse, in the strictest sense of the term, a part of the circulating medium of the kingdom? I think not! A bill of exchange is not money, but an order for money, and would be valueless unless honored by payment on presentation. From the time the bill was drawn until finally paid an amount of money equal to the demand of the bill must be held out of circulation for its payment. It adds nothing to the circulation, and in no sense does it constitute a part of the circulating medium. It may, possibly, increase the rapidity of circulation, but it is difficult to see how it could do even this. The L10 held out of circulation for the payment of the bill would have paid the debts in the same manner that the bill of exchange did, and I fail to see why they would not have made the circuit as quickly. If a horse had been made use of in the settlement of the debts mentioned by Mr. Thornton, it would have been barter, pure and simple, and not a money transaction.

That the contraction of the volume of credit will not tend to depress prices in the same manner and to the same extent that a contraction of the volume of money would will be apparent from the following illustration.

The most conservative estimates place the national, municipal, corporate, and individual debts in the United States at $30,000,000,000. The Secretary of the Treasury estimates the amount of money in circulation at $1,600,000,000. There is not, in fact, one-third of the amount available for use; but for the purpose of this illustration we will take the Secretary's estimate as correct. Now let us suppose that the volume of credit should be reduced to $28,400,000,000, either by the payment of $1,600,000,000 of the debt or by bankruptcy proceedings or in some other manner. If that amount of the credits were extinguished by payment, business would be stimulated. That sum of money, or at least a considerable portion of it, would pass into the hands of the creditor class, where it would seek investment, and the tendency would be, not to contract, but to expand prices. If that amount of the credits were extinguished by bankruptcy proceedings in which no money passed in either direction, such an extinguishment could not depress or expand prices; it could have no influence upon them.

Now suppose that $1,600,000,000 of the money, every dollar now claimed to be in circulation in the United States, should be withdrawn from the channels of trade, it would not be difficult to see that prices would fall; would, in fact, be completely annihilated. There would be no money with which to make purchases or to pay debts, civilization would go backwards, and universal bankruptcy and ruin would ensue. Suppose that only one-half or one-third of the money available for use should be withdrawn from circulation; even then business would be paralyzed, the money remaining would be hoarded or would be collected in the great money centres, prices would fall, and business men all over the country would be forced into bankruptcy. I think that it must be perfectly apparent that a contraction of credit does not act on the general level of prices in the same manner and to the same extent that a contraction of the volume of money does; that, in fact, it does not act on the general level of prices at all.

I, therefore, conclude that money, and money only, acts on the general level of prices, and that credit does not and cannot act on prices except only as it may increase the rapidity of the circulation of money; and even then it is the greater efficiency of the money, and not the credit, that stimulates prices. Credit may temporarily stimulate the price of the product of some particular industry, but to do this it must attract money from some other industry, and the stimulation will be at the expense of a corresponding depression in prices in the industry from which the money is attracted.

LOS ANGELES, COL.



POINTS IN THE AMERICAN AND FRENCH CONSTITUTIONS COMPARED.

BY NIELS GROeN.

There are several reasons why, particularly in the light of what is going on in the two countries, a comparison between certain points of the constitutions of the French and United States republics should be of more than passing interest. Successive ministerial crises in France threaten the stability of the republic; here, while political conventions representing millions of people meet and produce radical platforms, nobody is apprehensive of revolution or trouble. The constitution is a bulwark against sudden change; its wisdom is believed to be guarded by impregnable security against caprice or panic.

One in the Eastern hemisphere, the other in the New World, the two countries are the only great republics; both are watched by monarchies with invidious eyes, and, as before suggested, both have passed through, or are passing through, interesting not to say exciting experiences. American admirers of the republican form of government believe that the cause of human liberty would be seriously injured were the French Republic to cease to exist; they go further, and say that the death-knell of civil freedom would be sounded the moment the American republic became a failure. Something like a crisis is seen in the United States to-day, brought about by a whole series of concomitant causes, such as business depression, bank failures, industrial disputes terminating in strikes and lockouts, Coxey armies, panicky people, and unsettled views regarding commerce and finance, this last cause predominating.

Though France has her difficulties about raising sufficient money to carry on the administration, and an income tax is just as unpopular there as it would be here, nevertheless the chief cause of her trouble is to be traced, not to financial, but to constitutional sources. The country is very rich, and its ministers probably will always find some means of raising enough money to pay the cost of administration. Quite true, it is a sore point for a proud country which yearns for revenge upon Germany and longs for large colonial possessions, that its population does not increase, while the populations of its enemy, Germany, and of its well-wisher, the United States, go up by leaps and bounds. True, there are economic writers who regard the dearth and even the decrease of population in France as an advantage to the country. But these need not be considered in this inquiry, for it is quite obvious that any country which really aspires to be numbered with the great powers, and effectually wishes to own important colonial possessions, must have a stalwart and increasing people. And it is a real source of weakness that there should yet be in France so many Royalists constantly on the alert and hoping always for a change in the existing form of government.

Happily, on the contrary, no matter how widely the Western American may differ from his friend in the East, or how keenly the ex-Confederate may feel over the "lost cause," the warm-blooded son of Kentucky will fight as bravely under the flag of the republic as will his frozen-featured brother from Minnesota, and the dreamy individual who gazes poetically upon the placid waters of Puget Sound will shout as loudly for one country, and one allegiance to its glorious emblem, as will the gilded youth whose republicanism is artistically refreshed by a constant vision of the Statue of Liberty triumphantly standing in New York harbor.

Royalism, conservatism, concentrationism, moderate republicanism, opportunism, radicalism, ultra-radicalism, socialism, and heaven knows how many other "isms" besides, exist in France to-day, and make it hard for any ministry to carry on the government. Numerous disintegrating influences are ever present, and political convictions are seldom sufficiently decided for any ministry to form a stable majority.

Though France has had the experience of two previous experiments in republican forms of government (the one set up in 1792, and the second established in 1848), they were such mere makeshifts and so very short-lived that they could not have taught the country very much of the real genius of republican institutions. The centralization and tyranny of centuries brought revolt and hatred of the past, but did not prepare the people for self-government; while here the principles of civil liberty, transplanted from the mother country and flourishing in congenial conditions under colonial administration, found apt and natural expression in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The event of republican institutions twice tried in France failed to show that even the leaders understood the principles of liberty as they were understood by the fathers of the American system of government, and enthusiastically adopted by the people, as the crystallization, so to speak, in definite terms, of what they had long enjoyed. Short-sighted acts of tyranny, exercised by George III and his ministers, were regarded, and justly so, as mere accidents of the time and as innovations to be resisted and overcome. The outcome was the vindication of the principles of government founded by the countrymen of King Alfred the Great, their expansion, and the invaluable expression of those principles in the Declaration and the Constitution.

Some of the bravest and best under the French monarchy helped to establish the reign of popular liberty in the United States, and there can be no question but that the French Revolution was accomplished in part as a result of what had been seen and done on this side of the Atlantic on behalf of the civil rights of the people; but the founders of the first republic in France had no complete foundation on which to build a fabric firm and lasting. It was not easy for a venerable European nation, intrenched within its own regal institutions, in shaking off the past to begin a future of popular sovereignty. Much was gained by sweeping away the worst abuses of the past, but reaction came, succeeded, after a long lapse of time, by a second attempt to establish a republic, again to fail, until the collapse of the power of the adventurer whose election to the presidency was the beginning of the end of the republic of 1848, led to the third experiment, the permanent success of which we all hope for.

If—much virtue in an "if"—the leaders of the first French Republic had been thoroughly masters of and thoroughly imbued with the principles of American liberty, it is possible they might have so instructed and led a bright and capable people as to lay a sure foundation for the future. But even this modified statement is open to question. While it may be regretted that the American Constitution was not copied in the establishment of the successive French republics, it is by no means certain that this matchless paper would have been so far appreciated in its recognition of the great principles underlying it, as to insure success. Some of the South American republics have the American Constitution, more or less, but are not shining examples of republican success. No one can question that monarchies like the United Kingdom and Germany enjoy a larger diffusion of civil liberty than they.

Taking the French system, however, as it exists to-day, there can be no question that it would be vastly improved by copying the American model. It seems to have been founded with a view to the possibility of restoring the monarchy, and, this being so, the men who created it had no object in studying the American Constitution with a view to preventing those ministerial crises which threaten the destruction of the third republic. It will not do to attribute these crises to the unstable character of the fiery Frenchman, nor can the difficulty be disposed of by saying that a French minister will create a crisis for the sake of a pleasing bon mot or a sprightly paradox. A crisis supposes something outside of, or above, or beyond the ordinary, but French ministerial crises have become so common that they are the laughingstock of the nations, and may be said to be almost the normal condition of the legislative assemblies of France. So long as such critical situations can be thus easily brought about there cannot be that continuity of policy which is essential for carrying out great projects. The problem to be solved is a constitutional one,—a statement, I think, easily proved true.

Article Six of the constitution of 1875 reveals the real cause of ministerial crises in France: "The ministers are in a body responsible to the Chambers for the general policy of the government, and individually for their personal acts." This article obviously leaves the respective powers of both houses very undefined. Which chamber is the superior? To which of them are the ministers in fact responsible? The ministers may have a majority in the Chamber of Deputies, and may be in a minority in the Senate. Then there is a crisis. The Senate blocks the way and will not allow the government to go on, for it claims that it is the superior body. This absence of the proper demarcation of the powers of the Senate, of the Chamber of Deputies, and of the ministers necessarily leads to conflict; conflict is but a step from instability, and instability is a crisis which threatens revolution.

The remedy for these oft-recurring ministerial crises in France is to be found in the American Constitution. The French Constitution should be revised and changed at the part quoted and all parts relating to it, so as to provide against ministerial crises; and the instrument presenting a sure guide in the performance of this necessary work is the American Constitution. It has been in operation over a hundred years and has been found to be an admirable working document, affording ministerial stability to its cabinets for over a century. Such a document is surely worthy of the closest study by the public men of the sister republic. It was inevitable that in so long a time some amendments should have become necessary; but for a long period it has undergone no change, save such as noted, and formulating the results of the civil war. Now and then are heard murmurings which claim the necessity of a sixteenth amendment, to the effect that the name of God should be put in the Constitution. The obvious answer to this is, that in the official life of the United States there is a more real acknowledgment of the Divine Being than there is in the official life of any other country, and it is better to have the name of God impressed upon the hearts of the people than upon even the best official document ever drawn up.

It would not be correct to say that no attempts have been made to bring about a ministerial crisis in the United States by encroachment upon the rights of the Executive. Only once, however, when Andrew Johnson was President, has the action of the Executive been seriously hampered. Professor Bryce's remark may be applied to all other attempts. He writes: "Congress has constantly tried to encroach, both on the Executive and on the States,—sometimes like a wild bull driven into a corral, dashing itself against the imprisoning walls of the Constitution." There is the secret. The "imprisoning walls" of the American Constitution keep contending powers in their proper places. The Constitution is so well drawn up that a deadlock is an impossibility, the equilibrium of concomitant powers is easily maintained, and the sovereign will of the people has a fair opportunity of finding a natural exponent.

In the United States the Senate and the House of Representatives are coordinate bodies; in the French Republic each claims superiority over the other. In the United States bills are never introduced by the Cabinet, all bills must originate either in the Senate or in the House of Representatives; such is not the case in the French Republic. In the United States the chief duty of the President is to see that the laws are faithfully executed; the Cabinet administers; its members are rather the aids or secretaries of the chief magistrate of the nation than otherwise. They are his advisers and helpers. During the four years for which the President of the United States is elected, the limitations of his authority are so remote and theoretical that, for practical purposes, it may be stated that he always serves out his full term of office. On the contrary, Presidential resignations are not unknown in the French Republic. France elects her President for seven years, yet Thiers, MacMahon, Grevy, Carnot, Casimir-Perier, and Faure make a list longer than that of the names of the men who have lived in the White House during the past quarter of a century. In the United States, the Cabinet lasts as long as the President's term of office; in the French Republic, the Cabinet sometimes goes to pieces in four months. Briefly, it is quite clear that in the United States there can be no ministerial crises, since the President's chief duty under the Constitution is to see that the laws are faithfully executed, and the members of his Cabinet do not introduce bills, even for finance or supplies, but act as his aids. As previously intimated, the difficulty with the French legislative bodies is that royalistic precedents and rules run side by side with republican principles, and the result is a mongrel institution divided, too often, against itself. When matters shall be so arranged that the French President will have to fill out his full term of office, and French ministers will not be permitted to originate legislation, and cabinets shall be selected to serve as long as the Presidential term, then the French Republic will enjoy the same ministerial stability as that of the United States.

It were hard to say that the French method of electing a president is any better or any worse than that of the United States. The President of the French Republic is elected by the majority of the votes of both Chambers. This plan does not seem to remove him further from the people than does the system of electing a president by electors, as in the United States. As human ingenuity has not yet succeeded in creating the ideal republic, wherein, according to Ouida, there would be no president, some system of election must be followed. The question is not a burning one. There is notable, however, a growing tendency in France in favor of electing the president directly by the votes of the people. The seven-years' period for which the French president is elected is considered by many to be an excellent provision; but it loses half its excellence by reason of the fact that the president has the power to initiate laws, this and other things concurring to make his resignation a possibility, and not a remote one.

That the office of vice-president does not exist in France seems to be of no great consequence. In the history of the American Republic there have been five vice-presidents who have been called upon to step into the Presidential chair by the deaths of presidents. According to the French Constitution, in case of a Presidential vacancy, whether from death or any other cause, the two Chambers proceed immediately to the election of a president. In the interval the ministers are invested with executive power.

What I have written regarding the growing tendency to think it would be better to elect the president directly by the votes of the people, applies with a little more force to the election of senators. In France the municipalities elect the senators, as do State legislatures in this country. It is held by some who have discussed the question that it is much more in conformity with the genius of republican institutions that the people express their will directly by ballot rather than through the votes of municipal councils, as in France, or of legislatures, as in the United States. I cannot see that the difference of terms, that of French senators being nine years, and of American six, is of practical consequence. While both republics are at one as to the necessity of a second chamber, providing thus a check to hasty and unconsidered legislation, many thinkers in both countries agree that some change is necessary to make it possible for others than millionaires to be elected senators.

If I were a Frenchman and had the power, I should get every newspaper throughout the land, and every public man and influential citizen, to enter upon a crusade for the purpose of impressing upon the minds of the whole people the following extract from the Constitution of the United States:

Congress shall make no laws respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

In France, there are constantly continuous and unseemly clashes between church and state. No matter what complications may exist as results of the past, surely it would be better for all concerned to leave the churches to be sustained by the voluntary contributions of the people. In the United States churches seem to live and thrive under this system of noninterference by the state in religious matters, and voluntary support. The more than eighty thousand clergymen are provided for. In the French Republic one reads everywhere, on the walls of churches and of schools, the words "Liberte, fraternite, egalite," while there seems to be a serious disagreement between Clericals, on the one side, and Radicals, on the other, as to the meaning of these words. To effectually put an end to this strife, the adoption of the clause I have quoted would be sufficient.

In writing thus freely of the French Republic I am free, I trust, from the spirit of the carping critic delighting in comparisons to the advantage of his own country. I appreciate the splendid literature, the brilliant art, the advanced civilization of the France of to-day. I recognize with gratitude the debt which the United States owes the gallant Gallic people for sympathy and material aid in her struggle for independence. It is now only necessary to be in France on the Fourth of July to realize the reality and depth of the friendship which exists between the sister republics. But I do think that until France shall copy more closely the Constitution of the United States, the stability of the third republic cannot be regarded as assured.



HONEST MONEY; OR, A TRUE STANDARD OF VALUE:

A SYMPOSIUM.

I. BY WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN.

We hear much about a "stable currency" and an "honest dollar." It is a significant fact that those who advocate a single gold standard have for the most part avoided a discussion of the effect of an appreciating standard. They take it for granted that a gold standard is not only an honest standard, but the only stable standard. I denounce that child of ignorance and avarice, the gold dollar under a universal gold standard, as the most dishonest dollar which we could employ.

I stand upon the authority of every intelligent writer upon political economy when I assert that there is not and never has been an honest dollar. An honest dollar is a dollar absolutely stable in relation to all other things. Laughlin, in his work on "Bimetallism," says:

Monometallists do not—as it is often said—believe that gold remains absolutely stable in value. They hold that there is no such thing as a "standard of value" for future payments in either gold or silver which remains absolutely invariable.

He even suggests a multiple standard for long-time contracts. I quote his words:

As regards national debts, it is distinctly averred that neither gold nor silver forms a just measure of deferred payments, and that if justice in long contracts is sought for, we should not seek it by the doubtful and untried expedient of international bimetallism, but by the clear and certain method of a multiple standard, a unit based upon the selling prices of a number of articles of general consumption. A long time contract would thereby be paid at its maturity by the same purchasing power as was given in the beginning.

Jevons, one of the most generally accepted of the writers in favor of a gold standard, admits the instability of a single standard, and in language very similar to that above quoted suggests the multiple standard as the most equitable, if practicable. Chevalier, who wrote a book in 1858 to show the injustice of allowing a debtor to pay his debts in a cheap gold dollar, recognized the same fact, and said:

If the value of the metal declined, the creditor would suffer a loss upon the quantity he had received; if, on the contrary, it rose, the debtor would have to pay more than he calculated upon.

I am on sound and scientific ground, therefore, when I say that a dollar approaches honesty as its purchasing power approaches stability. If I borrow a thousand dollars to-day and next year pay the debt with a thousand dollars which will secure exactly as much of all things desirable as the one thousand which I borrowed, I have paid in honest dollars. If the money has increased or decreased in purchasing power, I have satisfied my debt with dishonest dollars. While the government can say that a given weight of gold or silver shall constitute a dollar, and invest that dollar with legal-tender qualities, it cannot fix the purchasing power of the dollar. That must depend upon the law of supply and demand, and it may be well to suggest that this government never tried to fix the exchangeable value of a dollar until it began to limit the number of dollars coined.

II. BY M. W. HOWARD.

The term, "a standard of value," so often used, is erroneous and misleading. There can be no fixed standard of value, and the student who wishes to delve into our financial problems should clear his mind of such a fallacy at the very threshold of his investigations.

Money is a commodity; it is regulated by the same laws of supply and demand which regulate the price of corn, cotton, wheat, land, labor, etc. If the wheat crop is short, wheat will be dear; if abundant, it will be cheap. So with money. If the money supply is not sufficient to meet the demands of business and commerce,—if the money crop is short, in other words,—the money will be dear; it will command too high a price, its purchasing power will be too great.

On the other hand, if the money supply is abundant, sufficient to meet all demands upon it,—in other words, if there is a bountiful money crop,—it will be cheaper; it will not have such a large purchasing power; it will be worth less when measured by our labor, our lands, and the products of our labor.

I oppose the single gold standard because it makes the money crop short, gives us a small circulating medium, and hence enhances the value or price of money.

We have a certain demand for breadstuff, which is constantly increasing as our population multiplies; suppose that we cease producing corn, and find no substitute for it, would not the price of wheat be greatly enhanced, providing there is no increased wheat production? So with the money supply. There is a certain demand for money, ever increasing as population grows. How shall we meet it? By producing more money, or by destroying one-half of that which we now have, by eliminating one-half of the base of future supplies of money?

The latter is now the policy of this government, and as a consequence the price of gold has been greatly enhanced, and its purchasing power has increased each year, and will continue to do so.

The advocates of the gold standard call this "honest money." Their idea of honest money is money that ever increases in purchasing power because of its ever-increasing scarcity.

My definition of honest money is: "A sufficiently large circulating medium, whether of gold, silver, or paper, to bring down the price of money so that we shall obtain fair prices for all labor and products." Then as population increases and as the demand for money becomes greater, let the government meet that demand from time to time by enhancing the money supply.

III. BY WHARTON BARKER.

The true test of an honest dollar is its purchasing power, and that dollar, and only that dollar, is honest that does exact justice between creditor and debtor. The gold monometallists harp on the injustice of a depreciating dollar, but they ignore the injuries inflicted by an appreciating dollar. They tell us that a depreciating dollar defrauds the creditor, but just as a depreciating dollar defrauds the creditor, an appreciating dollar defrauds the debtor, and it is not one whit worse to defraud the creditor by obliging him to accept a depreciated dollar from his debtor than to defraud the debtor by obliging him to pay in a dollar made artificially scarce and dear.

An appreciating dollar works injustice to the debtor just as a depreciating dollar works injustice to the creditor, but an appreciating dollar is many fold more injurious to trade and industry, for while the depreciating dollar taxes the creditor for the benefit of the debtor, the appreciating dollar takes from the debtor, from producers in general and the industrious classes, and gives to the creditor classes, the drones of society, a larger and larger share of the products of labor, which of necessity discourages industry. Under a depreciating standard the recompense of the producer becomes greater and greater, the creditor classes receive a smaller and smaller portion of the products of labor, the profits of industry increase, and consequently production is encouraged and trade and industry are stimulated. But under an appreciating standard the recompense of labor becomes smaller and smaller, and the share of the products of labor absorbed by the creditor larger, which tends to discourage industry and stifle enterprise.

IV. BY ARTHUR I. FONDA.

The value of any commodity is measured by what it will exchange for. It is in fact its purchasing power, or power in exchange. This in substance is the concrete definition of value given by all economists, and they all unite in stating that value is determined by the supply of a commodity relative to the demand for it; all other factors affecting value being secondary and acting through their effect on either supply or demand.

Since both the supply of and the demand for every freely produced commodity is variable, and since a true standard of value, like a true standard of weight or length, must be invariable as regards that which it measures, it necessarily follows that no single freely produced commodity can be a true standard of value. But while it is true that every single commodity must vary in value, it is also true that all commodities taken together cannot do so. This principle is also accepted as correct by all economists.

It is evident then that a true standard of value can only be found in a composite unit containing a definite quantity of every commodity, or practically speaking, a definite quantity of each of a large number of the most important commodities. This is what is known as the "multiple standard," or the "commodity standard," and has long been in use by economists in the form of tables of index numbers to show fluctuations in general prices, or what is the same thing, changes in money values.

The only function of money is to facilitate the exchange of goods. In doing this it acts directly as a circulating medium, and the demand for it for this purpose, relative to the supply, determines its value; for money, whether of coin or paper or both combined in one circulation to meet one need, is subject to the same law of supply and demand which governs all commodities, and which indeed is as universal in the economic world as the law of gravitation is in the physical world.

Incidentally the value of money fills the important function of serving as a measure of the values of goods transferred without the direct use of money, both immediate and deferred. This, however, has no effect on the demand for money or on its value.

The people are accustomed to regard money as of constant value, and an honest money must necessarily conform to this belief. If money varies in value, the people are deluded, and many are wronged if they are unaware of the fluctuation. If they become aware of it,—as they generally do by a bitter experience,—they are confronted with an uncertainty that is most detrimental to any business or enterprise. Imagine what our business would be with our measures of weight, length, and capacity all variable! Yet such a condition would be less disastrous than a fluctuating money value when it became fully known that it was so.

The demand for money varies from many causes, chief among which are changes in the quantity of goods exchanged, the extent to which other credit instruments take the place of money in such exchanges, and the activity of money, or the extent to which it is hoarded, all of which are entirely beyond control. The supply of money, however, can be controlled, and to maintain money at a constant value the supply must be constantly adjusted to the ever-varying demand, so that its general purchasing power may remain the same. The test of a constant money must be a constant general level of prices; and this must be judged by the prices in the open market of those principal commodities which would be selected to constitute the standard of value, the quantity of each being proportioned to its importance in trade.

The only function of gold and silver in a monetary system is to limit the volume of the money, either by their scarcity when freely coined, or by the laws limiting their coinage. And as this limitation of the supply bears no definite relation to the demand for money, the value of the money necessarily fluctuates. Our industrial system is constantly growing more sensitive to even slight changes in money value, owing to the greater diversification of industries and the greater division of labor, and the need for preventing such changes is constantly growing more imperative.

When the people arrive at a clearer perception of these facts and principles they will understand that the chance production of gold and silver is too clumsy a contrivance to properly control so delicate a matter as the value of money under modern industrial conditions, and I believe they will substitute for the present system a circulating medium of paper money, properly guaranteed, and susceptible of prompt and certain increase or decrease of volume to meet every possible variation in demand, and rigidly controlled to conform in value to a true standard of value, a standard composed not alone of gold or silver or both combined, but of all the leading commodities.

In short, they will separate the standard of value from the medium of exchange, demonetizing both gold and silver as to the latter function, but using both and many other things in conjunction therewith for the former function.

V. BY A. J. WARNER.

From whatever side the question is approached, in the last analysis the value of money of any kind is found to depend upon its quantity, and not upon color, or ductility, or malleability, or any other particular quality of the thing upon which the money function is impressed. There can be therefore, in fact, no other standard of value, or money standard, except the quantity of whatever is used as money. When gold and silver are used, the value of each unit of money depends upon the number of such units, and these in turn depend upon the quantity of the metal from which the money is made. Any cause, therefore, which restricts, limits, or contracts the quantity of any kind of money, increases the value of each unit. On the contrary, causes that operate to increase the supply of money have the opposite effect.

Hence, only that currency can properly be called "sound" currency which is made to maintain stable relations to things to be bought and sold. In other words, general prices are determined by the proportion between money on the one side, and things offered against money on the other side. Such money only is "honest" money.

The whole question, therefore, of money standard is a question of money supply; for, as the price of single things, money being constant, depends upon supply on the one hand, as against demand for it on the other, so, in general, prices depend on money supply on the one hand, and things to be bought and sold on the other. This I believe to be the fundamental law of money.



THE NEW CIVIL CODE OF JAPAN.

BY TOKICHI MASAO, M. L., D. C. L.

Ever since the establishment of the present imperial government in 1868, the one unceasing aim of Japan's foreign policy has been the abolition of the extra-territoriality regime, under which certain quasi-judicial functions are exercised on the Japanese soil by the ambassadors and consuls of the Occidental nations. This anxiety on Japan's part to rid herself of this shameful regime imposed upon her against her will, will not appear surprising when the fact is learnt that one Occidental nation went so far as to call her consul at Yokohama, "Her Britannic Majesty's the Most Honourable Court for Japan"—a name almost enough to imply that Japan was a British province. Extra-territoriality rests upon the assumption that the laws and procedure of the non-Christian nations are so unlike to and different from those of the Christian nations that without the protection of this system the safety and well-being of the subjects of the latter sojourning in the territory of the former would be placed in constant jeopardy. Accordingly in the early seventies Japan came to the conclusion that the only possible way of emancipating herself from the disgraceful yoke of extra-territoriality was to adopt one of the systems of law obtaining in the Christian world and compile a code of law based upon that system, and applicable alike to the Japanese and to the foreigners residing in Japan.

There were three such systems—the Anglo-American, the French, and the Germanic Roman—each offering itself for adoption. Mr. Yeto Shimpei,[2] who became the Minister of Justice in 1872, seems to have had a personal preference for the French system. He called to his assistance some of the most eminent jurists of France and entered upon the work of drafting a code. At the same time he established in Tokio a law school known as the "Department of Justice Annex Law School," in which French law was taught by those same jurists whom he had called from France. About this time there was also established in the University of Tokio a law school in which instruction was given chiefly in English law. It was while teaching in this university law school that Mr. Henry T. Terry (a New York lawyer and an alumnus of Yale College) wrote his memorable book on English law, designed especially for the use of Japanese law students. From henceforth "Terry's Leading Principles of Anglo-American Law" became as familiar to them as are "Blackstone's Commentaries" to the law students of this country.

[2] Those who have followed the course of events in Japan since the beginning of the new era will remember that upon the return of Prince Iwakura, in 1873, from his around-the-world embassy, Mr. Yeto had to withdraw from the cabinet, owing to a difference of opinion between him and the Prince with regard to the Corean problem then pending. Returning to his native province, Saga, he tried to raise troops against the government (to carry out, of course, his own convictions in regard to the Corean problem), resulting in the famous "Saga rebellion" of 1873. Defeated by the government troops, he betook himself to the interior of the country in disguise, was arrested, found guilty of treason, and executed according to law. It is a familiar saying in Japan that Mr. Yeto died a criminal at the hand of his own Penal Code.

Thus, side by side there existed in Tokio two law schools in which two distinct systems of law were taught—the English and the French. The primary object of the Department of Justice in establishing the French law school being to make it a training school of judicial officers, the students of that school were, upon graduation, to render, for a limited number of years, an obligatory service to the government in the various capacities of judges, magistrates, and prosecuting attorneys. On the other hand, the University of Tokio being a strictly independent institution in which learning is pursued for the sake of learning, the graduates of the university or English law school were at entire liberty in their choice of professions. Naturally enough the majority of these did not wish to enter the same service which the graduates of the other school were obliged to enter as a matter of fulfilment of contract. Thus it happened that the bench was recruited from the French law school, while the bar was recruited from the English law school. This state of affairs lasted for about twenty years, during which time there was also established a German law school in the University of Tokio. Those who know something about the rivalry that existed in ancient times between the Sabinians and the Proculians, or even about the rivalry which exists to-day between the Yale method and the Harvard method, between the Waylandians and the Langdellians, can readily imagine what intellectual competition was carried on between these three Japanese law schools representing three distinct systems of law.

After twenty years of assiduous labor the Code Commission submitted a draft of a Civil Code to the two Houses of Parliament in 1890, accompanied by the recommendation from the Bureau of Legislation that the draft might receive the parliamentary sanction in such a manner that it might be possible for it to be put in effect by the year 1893. As might have been expected from the personnel of the Commission, consisting, in its conception, of Mr. Yeto Shimpei and the eminent French jurist Prof. Boissonade, etc., the draft was a genuine French code, being almost a literal translation of the Code Napoleon in all its parts excepting the part dealing with the Law of Persons. The question may well be asked why it took the Commission twenty long years to produce this imitation draft code when we know that the draft of the Code Napoleon itself was completed within the short period of four months. The answer seems to be that the Commission spent almost this entire time in their efforts to reconcile the principles of the French Law of Persons with the Japanese laws and customs bearing on that subject.

As has been the case with many other draft codes this draft Civil Code of Japan was destined to go into oblivion. As soon as it was submitted to the Parliament there ensued a most desperate fight against its adoption. As figuring most prominently among the champions of the opposition I may mention the names of Mr. Kazuo Hatoyama, the present Speaker of the House of Commons of the Imperial Japanese Parliament, and His Excellency Mr. Toru Hoshi, the present Japanese minister at Washington.[3] Inspired by these and other eminent jurists of the English school the entire bar was set against the adoption of the draft code. This was not a case of a bar accustomed to one set of rules and formulas opposing the adoption of a new code for fear that they might be compelled to learn a new set of rules and formulas. On the contrary, the bar was composed of men who had studied law as a science, and science for the sake of science. The spirit of their opposition was very plainly shown by the objections they raised against the code. They said:—"The draft Code was a blind imitation of a foreign Code which itself was far from being free from defects. It abounded in definitions, illustrations, and examples, and presented an appearance more becoming to a text-book of law than the Civil Code of a great nation. It went into too minute details and left too little room for voluntary development of jurisprudence. It incorporated, like the French Code, the law of evidence into the body of the Civil Code, which was totally at variance with the modern theory of evidence, being a failure on the part of the Commissioners to distinguish adjective from substantive law. It made too many innovations upon the Law of Persons hitherto obtaining in Japan. It changed the Family Law of the Japanese from the foundation, which was a gross disregard of the historical principle of jurisprudence," etc., etc., etc. Such were some of the grounds upon which they opposed the adoption of the draft code, reminding one of the fight in Europe between the historical school and the analytical school, between the jurists of France and those of Germany; of the fight in Germany between the Code party and the anti-Code party, between Savigny and Thibaut. Who can say, then, that the Japanese are childish imitators of anything that looks well? The fact is that this sort of conflict between the more conservative and the more radical, the more scrupulous and the more unscrupulous, the more positive and the more speculative, is going on all the time.

[3] I make mention of these two gentlemen as representative of two classes of a fairly large number of Japanese lawyers, viz., those who have been educated in the United States, and those who have received their education in England. Mr. Hatoyama is a D. C. L. of Yale. For nearly ten years (1880-1889) he was a professor of law in the University of Tokio Law School, and during most of this time he was also Dean of the school. Mr. Hoshi is a barrister-at-law of one of the English Inns of Court. For many years he was regarded as the leader of the Japanese bar. Like many distinguished members of the English bar, he is more of a lawyer than of a jurist.

At last in 1892 the Parliament passed an act deferring the taking effect of the code till 1897 and ordering in the meantime a careful revisal of the draft. A new Commission was appointed which consisted of three most eminent professors of law in Japan, each representing one of the three systems of law recognized there.[4] These Commissioners, aided by a number of efficient assistants, looked into the codes and laws of some fifteen leading American and European states. As representing the French system they consulted the codes of Louisiana, Belgium, France, Holland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. As representing the German system they consulted the codes and laws of Austria, Montenegro, Prussia, Saxony, Switzerland, and the draft Civil Code of the German Empire. As representing the English system they consulted the leading American and English reports and treatises, the draft Civil Code of New York, and the codes of California and British India.[5]

[4] I refer to Professors Hodzumi, Tomii, and Ume. Prof. Hodzumi is a barrister-at-law of the Middle Temple, and is one of the ablest representatives of English law in Japan. Prof. Tomii is a Docteur en Droit of the Facility of Lyons, and is by far the ablest expounder of the French codes in Japan. Prof. Ume, though a bearer of the same degree from the same Faculty as Prof. Tomii, has attended several German universities, and is more of the German school than of the French. The Commission itself consisted of several other distinguished personages, with the Prime Minister at the head. But these three professors composed what was called the "Compilation Committee," so that practically they were the Commission.

[5] Prof. Ume, a member of the Commission, is responsible for these statements so far as they relate to the codes and laws consulted. The classifications, however, are my own.

After four years of the most constant application the Commission submitted in 1896 a revisal of a part of the original draft. Had the Commission had the entire code revised they could not have shown greater wisdom. For the parts incomplete were those dealing with the Family Law and Successions, and the Commission remembered that these were the parts that occasioned the most vital objections to the old code. The Parliament referred the revised draft code to a Committee of their own, of which Mr. Hatoyama, the present Speaker, was made the chairman. After making a careful examination and some important modifications, Mr. Hatoyama reported favorably to its adoption. The Parliament acted according to his advice, and the draft became the law.

In its general arrangement the new code follows what the German jurists call the Pandekten system. It is divided into five general parts. Part I is called "Sōsoku," or General Laws, and deals with persons, natural and artificial, as the subjects of rights; with things as the objects of rights; and with juristic acts as setting rights in motion. One cannot help being astonished at and gratified with the remarkable extent to which Prof. Holland's views as expressed in his book on jurisprudence seem to be adopted in this part of the code.[6] Part II is called "Bukken," or Jus in Rem, corresponding to the Sachenrecht of the German code, and dealing with Possession, Ownership, etc., etc. Part III is called "Jinken," or Jus in Personam, corresponding to the Forderungsrecht of the German code, and dealing with General Law of Obligations, with Obligations arising ex contractu, quasi ex contractu, and ex delicto. The General Law of Obligations is taken largely from the Forderungsrecht of the Swiss code. The law of Contracts and Torts is taken entirely from the English law. Parts IV and V, dealing with the Family Law and the Law of Successions respectively, have not as yet been published, for reasons already indicated.

[6] This may be a mere conjecture on my own part. It is possible that the Commissioners never consulted his book, though to assert such a thing of them would be an insult to their scholarship. Be it as it may, it is a fact beyond question that their arrangement of these topics presents a remarkable coincidence to that of Prof. Holland's, and this is a matter upon which every thoughtful Japanese may well pride himself.

Such is the new Civil Code of Japan, adopted by the Imperial Parliament in its session of 1896. Truly, the year 1896 has been an eventful year for Japan. The war with China had brought glory to her arms. Formosa and numerous other islands had been added to her possessions. The insurgents of Formosa had been pacified. The treaties with the leading nations of the world had been revised, providing for the abolishment of the disgraceful extra-territoriality regime in Japan, to take effect, however, upon the taking effect of the new Civil Code. The last and greatest event of all, the new Code was adopted. With equal propriety, then, the Emperor Mutsuhito might have joined Justinian, in proclaiming:—"Imperatoriam Majestatem non solum armis decoratam, sed etiam legibus opportet esse armatam, ut utrumque tempus et bellorum et pacis recte possit gubernari!"



JOHN RUSKIN:

A TYPE OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY MANHOOD.

BY B. O. FLOWER.

The name John Ruskin is justly entitled to a foremost place among those of the builders of twentieth-century civilization. In him we find a rare combination of genius, culture, and refinement, blended with a tender concern for all earth's unfortunates. He is at once artist, philosopher, and philanthropist; but he is more than these; there is much of the austere religious reformer, giving a serious gravity to all the utterances of the glad-souled artist, a mingling of the spirit of a Savonarola with the imagination of a Turner.

John Ruskin, more than any other man of our time in like station of life, stands for the civilization which we believe is destined to glorify the coming century, for in his life all thought of ease, fame, and preferment,—all consideration of self,—is overmastered by his love for others. Endowed by nature with the imagination of a poet, the eyes of an artist, the brain of a philosopher, the soul of a prophet, and the heart of a man, he has conscientiously employed all his gifts as a sacred trust given to him that he might bless and enlighten his day, and ennoble his civilization for all time.

He was born amid affluence, and received the best educational advantages the age afforded. After graduating from Oxford in 1842, he studied painting under Copley Fielding and J. D. Harding. Subsequently he spent some time in Italy, finishing his art education in the land of earth's greatest painters.

While in college he composed many poems, but on leaving the university he turned his attention to art and prose composition. His "Modern Painters" was justly hailed as one of the noblest works of the century, and instantly placed its author in the ranks of the foremost art critics of the world.

Few if any of his admirers will agree with all his critical views. He not infrequently falls into those errors which we naturally expect to find in a man of intense feeling, of strong conviction, and of vivid imagination. If a positive idea takes possession of his mind, it is liable to give a strong bias to his thought, and in a degree interferes with that nice sense of proportion so essential to a great critic. On more than one occasion Mr. Ruskin has frankly admitted that his views and opinions were erroneous owing to being based on a partial appearance or influenced by pernicious ideas. A notable illustration of his thought being biassed by preconceived ideas is found in the religious opinions put forward in the early edition of parts I and II of "Modern Painters." And in a preface written in 1871 for a revised edition of his works, the philosopher calls attention to his early views, declaring that he was "wholly mistaken" and continuing: "I had been educated in the narrow doctrine of a narrow sect, and had read history obliquely, as a sectarian necessarily must."

Such are the blemishes which occasionally creep into the works of this master mind. They are, however, merely spots on the sun, which do not appear frequently enough to seriously dim the splendor of a critical work which in my judgment surpasses in real value that of any English scholar of the century. "Modern Painters," "The Stones of Venice," "The Seven Lamps," and his other works dealing with art are far more than criticisms; they touch the sleeping soul, they fire the spirit and awaken the conscience. They make the reader feel a new love for nature and art alike, and with this pure and inspiring love comes the desire for more knowledge. They appeal to the spiritual aspirations even more than to the artistic impulses or the intellectual apprehension. The moral exaltation which pervades his writings springs from his profoundly philosophical and religious nature. In all his work, as in his noble life, he has ever been moved by an intense desire to uplift and dignify humanity and to impress upon the public mind the subtle but positive effect for good exerted by true art. "I have had," he tells us in "The Two Paths," "but one steady aim in all I have ever tried to teach, namely, to declare that whatever was great in human art was the expression of man's delight in God's work."

With Ruskin, life is august; its possibilities for good and evil are never forgotten.

"Remember," he urges, "that every day of your life is ordaining irrevocably for good or evil the custom and practice of your soul; ordaining either sacred customs of dear and lovely recurrence, or trenching deeper and deeper the furrows for seed of sorrow. Now, therefore, see that no day passes in which you do not make yourself a somewhat better creature.... You will find that the mere resolve not to be useless, and the honest desire to help other people, will in the quickest and delicatest ways improve yourself."

The pleasure which springs from loyalty to duty is strenuously insisted upon by Ruskin, and he, more than any other illustrious man in our time, has reached such heights of unselfishness as to enable him to fully appreciate the unalloyed pleasure which flows from a life of sacrifice. If he is austere, he is also very humane. The fountains of pleasure that he would have us drink deeply from would leave no bitter aftertaste. He delights in no pseudo-pleasure; faithfulness to the highest ideal, untiring effort at complete self-mastery, a settled determination to work for the good of all and to be ever on guard lest by some inadvertence we injure some other living creature,—such are some of the lessons upon which our philosopher insists as essential to man's happiness.

"If," he urges, in writing for the young, "there is any one point which, in six thousand years of thinking about right and wrong, wise and good men have agreed upon, or successively by experience discovered, it is that God dislikes idle and cruel people more than any others; that His first order is, 'Work while you have light;' and his second, 'Be merciful while you have mercy.' 'Work while you have light,' especially while you have the light of morning. There are few things more wonderful to me than that old people never tell young ones how precious their youth is.... Remember, then, that I, at least, have warned you, that the happiness of your life, and its power, and its part and rank in earth or in heaven, depend on the way you pass your days now. They are not to be sad days; far from that, the first duty of young people is to be delighted and delightful; but they are to be in the deepest sense solemn days. There is no solemnity so deep, to a rightly thinking creature, as that of dawn.... You must be to the best of your strength usefully employed during the greater part of the day, so that you may be able at the end of it to say, as proudly as any peasant, that you have not eaten the bread of idleness. Then, secondly, I said, you are not to be cruel. Perhaps you think there is no chance of your being so; and indeed I hope it is not likely that you should be deliberately unkind to any creature; but unless you are deliberately kind to every creature, you will often be cruel to many."

Ruskin is often disquieting to conventionalists; he is too candid to be popular with those who make long prayers and descant on charity while they ignore justice. He puts questions to them which they do not want to consider themselves, or to have others consider. By insisting on the substitution of justice for charity, and by taking the teachings of Jesus seriously, he offends the sleek money-changers who occupy choice pews in the modern palaces of ease dedicated to the lowly Nazarene. Such expressions as the following from the magnificent lecture on "Work" prove far less satisfying to this class than the popular sermons they are accustomed to hear:

"It is the law of heaven," says Ruskin, "that you shall not be able to judge what is wise or easy, unless you are first resolved to judge what is just, and to do it. That is the one thing constantly reiterated by our master—the order of all others that is given oftenest: 'Do justice and judgment.' That's your Bible order; that's the 'service of God.' The one divine work—the one ordered sacrifice—is to do justice; and it is the last we are ever inclined to do. Anything rather than that! As much charity as you choose, but no justice. 'Nay,' you will say, 'charity is greater than justice.' Yes, it is greater; it is the summit of justice; it is the temple of which justice is the foundation. But you can't have the top without the bottom; you cannot build upon charity. You must build upon justice, for this main reason, that you have not, at first, charity to build with. It is the last reward of good work. It is all very fine to think you can build upon charity to begin with; but you will find all you have got to begin with begins at home, and is essentially love of yourself.

"You well-to-do people, for instance, who are here to-night will go to 'Divine Service' next Sunday, all nice and tidy, and your little children will have their tight little Sunday boots on, and lovely little Sunday feathers in their hats; and you'll think, complacently and piously, how lovely they look! So they do; and you love them heartily, and you like sticking feathers in their hats. That's all right; that is charity; but it is charity beginning at home. Then you will come to the poor little crossing-sweeper got up also—in its Sunday dress—the dirtiest rags it has that it may beg the better: we shall give it a penny, and think how good we are. That's charity going abroad. But what does justice say, walking and watching near us? Christian justice has been strangely mute, and seemingly blind; and, if not blind, decrepit this many a day: she keeps her accounts still, however—quite steadily—doing them at nights, carefully, with her bandage off, and through acutest spectacles (the only modern scientific invention she cares about). You must put your ear down ever so close to her lips to hear her speak; and then you will start at what she first whispers, for it will certainly be, 'Why shouldn't that little crossing-sweeper have a feather on its head, as well as your own child?' Then you may ask justice, in an amazed manner, How she can possibly be so foolish as to think children could sweep crossings with feathers on their heads? Then you stoop again, and justice says—still in her dull, stupid way—'Then, why don't you, every other Sunday, leave your child to sweep the crossing, and take the little sweeper to church in a hat and feather?' Mercy on us (you think), what will she say next? And you answer, of course, that you don't, because everybody ought to remain content in the position in which Providence has placed them.

"Ah, my friends, that's the gist of the whole question. Did Providence put them in that position, or did you? You knock a man into a ditch, and then you tell him to remain content in the 'position in which Providence has placed him.' That's modern Christianity. You say, 'We did not knock him into the ditch.' How do you know what you have done or are doing? That's just what we have all got to know, and what we shall never know until the question with us every morning, is, not how to do the gainful thing, but how to do the just thing."

These thoughts suggest to us Ruskin, the social economist, for we must not lose sight of the fact that this greatest of all art critics, this strong, sane ethical philosopher who has emphasized so forcibly the possibilities, duties, and responsibilities of the individual in all his complex relations, is also one of the most enlightened and broad-visioned economists of our wonderful age. By treatises, essays, and letters he has striven for a brighter day for the breadwinners. He has sought to elevate the ideals and tastes of all toilers, while he has labored unremittingly to secure for them that meed of justice which is their right, but which has so long been denied them.

So far back as 1868, when few people of position dared advocate so sane a proposition as the governmental ownership of "natural monopolies," John Ruskin published these bold and thoughtful words in the London Daily Telegraph:

The ingenious British public seemed to be discovering to its cost, that the beautiful law of supply and demand does not apply in a pleasant manner to railroad transit. But if they are prepared to submit patiently to the "natural" laws of political economy, what right have they to complain? The railroad belongs to the shareholders; and has not everybody a right to ask the highest he can get for his wares? The public have a perfect right to walk, or to make other opposition railroads for themselves, if they please, but not to abuse the shareholders for asking as much as they think they can get. Will you allow me to put the real rights of the matter before them in a few words?

Neither the roads nor the railroads of any nation should belong to any private persons. All means of public transit should be provided at public expense, by public determination, where such means are needed, and the public should be its own shareholder. Neither road, nor railroad, nor canal should ever pay dividends to anybody. They should pay their working expenses, and no more. All dividends are simply a tax on the traveller and the goods, levied by the persons to whom the road or canal belongs, for the right of passing over his property, and this right should at once be purchased by the nation, and the original cost of the roadway—be it of gravel, iron, or adamant—at once defrayed by the nation, and then the whole work of the carriage of persons or goods done for ascertained prices, by salaried officers, as the carriage of letters is done now.

Happily these suggestions of the distinguished Englishman have been followed, in part at least, by several enlightened nations, but to the disgrace of our republic, and to the great cost of the producing and consuming masses, we are lagging behind in these respects, becoming a camp-follower instead of a leader in the march of progress, because of the influence exerted by a small class, who have grown so powerful through special privileges given to them by the nation that they now assume to thwart beneficent legislation in order that they may continue to grow richer through this vicious form of governmental paternalism, which places the multitude in the power of a few.

Ruskin's views on money are as disturbing to the usurers and those who through special privileges in money have amassed fortunes of unearned wealth as his sound position on railroads is distasteful to the monopolists who impoverish the producer and consumer by exorbitant rates on transportation.

The great Englishman is also too clear-sighted to accept the fallacious doctrines of the money-changers in regard to the medium of exchange. He is too honest to hold his peace in the presence of a great wrong, hence his definition of money is far more nearly correct than the false and essentially injurious definitions so industriously promulgated by special pleaders for an interested class. "The final and best definition of money," says Ruskin, "is that it is a documentary promise ratified and guaranteed by the nation to give or find a certain quantity of labor on demand."

In 1873 our author carried on a spirited discussion with some conventional economists regarding the money of the rich. One writer undertook to defend the lavish and reckless expenditures of the wealthy by calling to his aid the well-worn plea that money thus paid out finds its way into the pockets of poor families, and that thus through the bounty of the rich the starving are blest. Ruskin, in the course of his reply, observed that, were he a poor man instead of a moderately rich one, he would be sure that the paper referred to would suggest the question:

These means of living, which this generous and useful gentleman is so fortunately disposed to bestow on me—where does he get them himself?... These are the facts. The laborious poor produce "the means of life" by their labor. Rich persons possess themselves by various expedients of a right to dispense these means of life, and, keeping as much means as they want for themselves, and rather more, dispense the rest usually only in return for more labor from the poor, expended in producing various delights for the rich dispenser. The idea is now gradually entering poor men's minds, that they may as well keep in their own hands the right of distributing "the means of life" they produce; and employ themselves, so far as they need extra occupation, for their own entertainment or benefit, rather than that of other people.

The conventional economist replied to the question relating to how the rich man got his wealth by stating that it was obtained by the possessor or his ancestors through a "mutually beneficent partnership" between the rich and the poor by which the poor had their share of the joint returns advanced to them. Mr. Ruskin in his reply stated the question again, and then proceeded to answer it by a telling personal illustration. He says:

"Where does the rich man get his means of living?" I don't myself see how a more straightforward question could be put! so straightforward, indeed, that I particularly dislike making a martyr of myself in answering it, as I must this blessed day—a martyr, at least, in the way of witness; for if we rich people don't begin to speak honestly with our tongues, we shall, some day soon, lose them and our heads together, having for sometime back, most of us, made false use of the one and none of the other. Well, for the point in question, then, as to means of living: the most exemplary manner of answer is simply to state how I got my own, or rather how my father got them for me. He and his partners entered into what your correspondent mellifluously styles "a mutually beneficent partnership" with certain laborers in Spain. These laborers produced from the earth annually a certain number of bottles of wine. These productions were sold by my father and his partners, who kept nine-tenths, or thereabouts, of the price themselves, and gave one-tenth, or thereabouts, to the laborers. In which state of mutual beneficence my father and his partners naturally became rich, and the laborers as naturally remained poor. Then my good father gave all his money to me.

Space forbids a more extended notice of Mr. Ruskin's broad and thoughtful views on economic problems, but before closing this paper, I wish to notice how the life of this great philanthropist has touched and brightened other lives. Many men think noble thoughts and at times are stirred by the loftiest aspirations, but in actual everyday life they sadly fail to live up to their teachings; but he who can and does master himself, he who gives his life for justice and thinks of the welfare of others before he considers himself, has reached a far higher summit than have the most gifted intellects who, while apprehending the beauty of goodness, fail to express that beauty in their daily lives. John Ruskin's life has been at once earnest, pure, and unselfish.

Of the unexampled manner in which he gave up his beautiful wife to his friend—how he quietly secured a divorce that she might become the wife of the man she loved—electing to pass the rest of his life alone rather than destroy her happiness,—these facts are well known, and Mr. Ruskin has been severely criticised for not holding his wife in unwilling bondage. But he was so constituted that it was impossible for him to endure the thought of being directly or indirectly the cause of another's misery.

Another striking illustration of his unselfishness is seen in the manner in which he has disposed of his fortune, which at the time of his father's death amounted to a million dollars. With this money he set about doing good. Poor young men and women who were struggling to obtain an education were helped, homes for working men and women were established, and model apartment-houses were erected. He also promoted a work for reclaiming waste land outside of London. This land was used for the aid of unfortunate men who wished to rise again from the state into which they had fallen through cruel social conditions and their own weaknesses. It is said that this work suggested to General Booth his colonization farms. Ruskin has also ever been liberal in aiding poor artists, and has done much to encourage the artistic taste among the young. On one occasion he purchased ten fine water-color paintings by Holman Hunt for $3,750, to be hung in public schools of London.

By 1877 he had disposed of three-fourths of his inheritance, besides all the income from his books. But the calls of the poor and the plans which he wished to put into operation looking toward education and ennobling the toilers, and giving to their gloomy lives something more of sunshine and joy, were such that he determined to dispose of all the remainder of his wealth except a sum sufficient to yield him fifteen hundred dollars a year on which to live.

Of all English writers of our century no one has left a more valuable literary legacy than has John Ruskin, but the splendid and voluminous works of his brain are even less priceless than the example of his wonderful life. That he is in the shadow in his old age is by no means strange; a nature so sensitive, so finely strung, so keenly alive to the sufferings of others on every hand, has necessarily felt what the well-kept and self-engrossed animals around him knew nothing of. Indeed, just here we find the chief reason why the finest natures suffer so keenly in this age of heartless greed, self-absorption, and gold madness, of wanton extravagance and biting poverty, of widespread misery and growing discontent. Sensitive natures who are spiritually alive to the misery around them must suffer while they sow the seed-thoughts of a new day—suffer uncomplainingly until the waiting-time of this great transition period has passed.

In John Ruskin we find great breadth of thought and a wide range of intellectual vision, going hand in hand with a profound philosophical grasp of life's deepest problems; and, what is more, these excellences are rendered luminous by the influence of an enlightened soul. His life has been characterized by nobility of purpose, purity of thought, a passion for nature and art, and an enthusiasm for humanity.



THE SINGLE TAX IN OPERATION.

BY HON. HUGH H. LUSK,

Ex-Member of the New Zealand Legislature.

Few if any of the various economic theories that have been advanced, claiming attention in virtue of their practical benefit to the existing conditions of human affairs, have gained so immediate or so widespread an acceptance amongst intelligent persons as that which is familiarly known as "the single-tax" theory propounded by Mr. Henry George. In all parts of the English-speaking world, at least, the theory has obtained many and enthusiastic disciples, who have believed, and probably still believe, that they find in Mr. George's doctrine a panacea for many of the most apparent of the evils which oppress society not less under our advanced civilization than they did at any former period of the world's history. It may be said, indeed, that we hear less of Mr. George and the single tax now than we did a few years ago, and from this some will argue that the idea has died or is dying out of men's minds; this, however, is almost certainly a mistake.

In the history of any great system of alleged reform there may be traced at least three distinct stages which are marked by different degrees of prominence in the public regard. The first of these may be called the period of promulgation, the second that of fermentation, and the third that of experiment. If the evils proposed to be reformed are manifest and widely recognized the first of these stages is almost certain to excite wide attention and much controversy on both sides. The earliest stage, that of mere discussion, however, soon wears itself out, and the theorists who argued in favor of, as well as those who argued against, the new system, having exhausted their ingenuity in argument, turn for the most part to something newer, and let the matter drop.

Then follows the period of incubation. Removed from the din of controversy a certain number of people are always found who are keenly sensible of the evils which the new system was supposed to cure, and who continue to meditate upon the possibility of its possessing the power to do so. These persons, it may be, make but little noise in the arena either of literature or politics, but they are not the less active, nor perhaps in the end the less really influential, on that account. Their influence is of the sort that depends upon a solid conviction, right or wrong, that the theory which they support is the true one; and as long as the evils, which the system they adhere to professes to cure, continue to exist, so long their influence may be expected to increase.