indeed, of any other country. It may be argued that although money is not defined in the statutes, coins are. But this does not help the case, because there is no legal requirement concerning the number of such coins as shall constitute the volume or whole of money. Moreover, by a confusion of language which could only have arisen out of the grossness of the medieval law upon which these statutes are founded, and the medieval language in which they are couched, these coins are termed "units of value." Say the Statutes: "The gold coins of the United States shall be a dollar piece, which at the standard (i.e., nine-tenths fine) weight of twenty-five and eight-tenths grains shall be the unit of value,"1 and then it goes on to mention other gold coins. Another statute confers a similar character upon the silver dollar piece of 412 grains, nine-tenths fine. The statutes do not say that either of these pieces shall be the unit of value in preference to the other, but makes them both equally units; which, as the law in this respect is not inoperative, should have suggested the truth that neither of them are units. The same statutes and the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States also make several other pieces of money, some composed of metal, others of paper, equally units of value; so that, as shown in a previous chapter, there are at the present time no less than twenty odd different kinds of units of value recognised by the laws of this country, and with a number of each of which a debt can lawfully be paid. Is not this defiance of reason, this violation and confusion of language, which the law commits, 1 Revised Statutes of the United States, Section 3511.

in itself a sufficient proof that the theory from which it arises is false, and that neither of these pieces are in fact the unit of value, but that all of them together compose such unit?

If we disregard both fact and reason, and, following the law, accept either of these pieces of money as the unit of value, we immediately become involved in practical difficulties.

It is a well-known fact that every time an additional one of the coins called dollars or pounds, and miscalled units of value, is put into circulation the measuring value of the original one becomes impaired. More than this, the function of this coin is certain to be modified by the emission of every promise of a dollar or pound coin which the law may authorise to be tendered for payments, or which custom may sanction for the same purpose. Even a shipment of uncoined bullion, either into or out of a given country, will, as the laws now stand, affect the measuring power of money in such country. From these circumstances it appears that what the law calls a unit of value in fact is not a unit at all. The law views it and defines it as though it were distinct and separable from all other things; but nature instantly merges it with all like and many unlike things, and makes the whole number of these things the

1 The affairs of the New England colonies were often thrown into disorder by the arrival of plate-ships from the West Indies. Sir Isaac Newton records similar results in England which followed the arrival of plate-ships from America; and other instances are mentioned in Mavor's "Voyages," ii. 223, et seq. This subject is fully treated, and numerous instances given relating to it, in the author's "History of Money."

real measure or unit. And as this whole number is not specified nor defined in the law, it follows that the real unit has no definite limits nor dimensions, and therefore that it has no determinable relation to value.

In substance the law says: "Such a thing shall be the unit of value; there shall be a blank number of such things made; they are of such a nature and shall have such legal attributes that they can only be used collectively and therefore in point of fact the real unit of value must be the whole number of them combined; but I decline to state what that number shall be; I decline to place any limit to it; I decline to fill up the blank."

The essential difference between money as it now stands in the law and other measures, whether of length, weight, volume, or area is thus rendered evident. The units of these are concrete and defined; they are not liable to be changed by edict or legislation, and cannot be modified by duplication; whilst money is abstract and undefined, and coins, bank notes, and other so-called " units of value," are in fact modified in functional power and efficiency with every increase or decrease of their combined number.1 In other words, the unit of money is not one coin, but all coins or moneys combined; whilst, on the contrary, the unit of length or measure is not all yard-sticks or pint-pots collectively, but only one of them.

An increase or diminution of the whole numbers of yardsticks will not affect the relation of length between any one

1 This distinction was pointed out by the gifted Bastiat. See his "Harmonies of Political Economy," London ed., p. 125.

yard-stick and any other object. An increase or diminution of the whole numbers of coins or notes clothed with the functions of money will instantly begin to change the relation of value between any one such coin or note and any other object. And such increase or diminution—as the law now stands-—is within the power of every man to make in direct proportion as he is rich and powerful. When money shall be recognized in the law, when it is defined, when its volume, magnitude, dimensions, limits are set forth as precisely, fixed as unchangeably, and protected as securely from alteration, as are now the dimensions of the yard-stick, the pint-pot, and the pound-weight, then, and then only, will money perfectly resemble other measures; for then only will it become a concrete thing of known dimensions. When this comes to pass, Aristotle's definition of its function will resume its original correctness, and money will be as fit in fact, as it is now only in theory, to measure the relation called value.

CHAPTER V.

VALUE IS A NUMERICAL RELATION.

Legal use of the words unit of value-Their importance―They are not defined in the law-Unit a synonym for measure-Evolution of the word value—Its Classical meaning related to the power of numbers -During the Dark Ages it became associated with labour-In the Rennaissance it acquired the meaning of an attribute of matterFallacy of this last view-The correct nature of value rediscovered by Montesquieu and Bastiat-Value shown to be a numerical ratio between all exchangeable things-Its further character difficult to define because of its continual variance-Though indefinable it is not immeasurable— Value measurable by the whole numbers of money—The existing mint laws practically make the whole numbers of money or unit or measure of value to consist of an indefinite sum whose only limits fluctuate between illimitable demand and uncertain supply.

TH

HE laws of the United States ordain that either one of several different coins weighing so many grains, or of pieces of paper of such a size, each called a dollar, shall be "the unit of value."

It is not extravagant to say that upon these two little words hang much of the welfare of the country. When either of them is changed there will have happened a momentous revolution.

Important as they are, neither of these words is defined in the law. Reasoning from its use in analogous cases, "unit" is a synonym for measure; but the meaning of