This will enable us to comprehend that in King Edward I.'s time there were current in England "divers white moneys called pollards, crocards, staldings, eagles, leonines, and steepings, artificially made of silver, sulphur, and copper". And we can imagine how much poor people, who must take such moneys, suffered-how much the rich, who paid them to the poor, throve by them.

So badly indeed have Governments verified, that it was necessary to call in another verifier. This is a point on which Adam Smith insisted, but it has dropped out of the common political economy which is derived from him; his mind was more historical, and in a certain sense more matter-of-fact, than those of his successors, and they have neglected some things which were plainly favourite things with him. On the point we are dealing with he says:

"The currency of a great State, such as France or England, generally consists almost entirely of its own coin. Should this currency, therefore, be at any time worn, clipt, or otherwise degraded below its standard value, the State by a reformation of its coin can effectually re-establish its currency. But the currency of a small State, such as Genoa or Hamburgh, can seldom consist altogether in its own coin; but must be made up, in a great measure, of the coins of all the neighbouring States with which its inhabitants have a continual intercourse. Such a

State, therefore, by reforming its coin will not always be able to reform its currency. If foreign bills of exchange are paid in this currency, the uncertain value of any sum, of what is in its own nature so uncertain, must render the exchange always very much against such a State, its currency being, in all foreign States, necessarily valued even below what it is worth. In order to remedy the inconvenience to which this disadvantageous exchange must have subjected their merchants, such small States, when they began to attend to the interest of trade, have frequently enacted that foreign bills of exchange of a certain value should be paid, not in common currency, but by an order upon, or by a transfer in the books of a certain bank, established upon the credit and under the protection of the State; this bank being always obliged to pay, in good and

true money, exactly according to the standard of the State. The banks of Venice, Genoa, Amsterdam, Hamburgh, and Nuremberg seem to have been all originally established with this view, though some of them may have afterwards been made subservient to other purposes. The money of such banks, being better than the common currency of the country, necessarily bore an agio, which was greater or smaller, according as the currency was supposed to be more or less degraded below the standard of the State. The agio of the Bank of Hamburgh, for example, which is said to be commonly about fourteen per cent., is the supposed difference between the good standard money of the State and the clipt, worn, and diminished currency poured into it from all the neighbouring States."

This origin of banking is one of the hundred examples of the difference between the real origin of conspicuous institutions and what a present observer would imagine to have been their origin. Any one would suppose that they were invented to diffuse modern conveniences and to satisfy refined desires, as they do around us. But, in fact, they are older than those desires. They were created at the sharp pinch of some old necessity, and being in existence and showing an aptitude for new services, were gradually used in new ways. The English have based on horse-racing a fine system of calculated betting, but the first horse was tamed for coarser purposes than that.

However, it will be said, though in history Government is a bad verifier, though influential classes have in all ages made a profit out of its bad verification, though a new verifier had to be called in because of its badness, yet at first, and when it undertook the business of coining, it must have had the welfare of the people at heart. But he is always a bold man who speaks of "origins"; most common things are older than history, and we can only tell by conjecture how they occurred. But conjecture for conjecture, it is more probable that Governments began to coin in their own interest, as they have continued to coin for their own profit.

Herodotus gives a graphic account of the difficulty of great

He melts the

he says, "treasures up his revenue in this way.

gold and silver he receives and pours it into earthen vessels. When the vessel is full and the metal is cooled, he breaks the jar. From these lumps, when he wants money, he cuts off what he needs." A sovereign who was possessed of large treasures in the precious metals would like very much to have an easier mode of using them. The notion of coining money was borrowed by the Greeks from the East, and it is much more likely that the Babylonian monarchs found an advantage for themselves in dividing their metallic treasures into ascertained and stamped weights, than that they thought much of aiding the traffic of their subjects. Indeed, their standard of value was too high for common purposes. They coined (what was afterwards called) the " Æginetan talent," which is about £406 English money. Perhaps other school-boys, like myself, have fancied that the ancients must have been very rich, "because they had such big money". But the puzzle is explained if we suppose the original coins to have been suggested by the convenience of the original coiners, and to have been used for the remittances of despots and the tributes of provinces rather than in petty dealings of trade.

But any further discussion of this curious subject would be out of place here, and it would be difficult, for we have to carry back our minds to a time when measuring by weight was a novel invention. There is no "natural" unit of weight; no foot, no cubit; and it was ages before any sort of standard was agreed upon. The original talent was the weight in the scale, as well as coined money; it became the principal coin because it was the largest weight. Sir George Lewis justly said that it required a "good stroke of the imagination" to conceive state of civilisation in which it was difficult to tell the time of day; still more would it tax the fancy to conceive a time in which "standard weights" came in as new things, and out of them stamped weights or coins grew. We are so used to the candle that we forget it required to be lighted.

All this long history proves, I think, that we must not reject improvements in our theories of coinage, on the ground that our present theories are universal or ancient; on the contrary, those theories are very modern and very rare.

But what improvement is possible? The answer is plain. A remarkable movement is going on in the world towards a uniformity of coinage between different nations. And it was begun in what seems the way of the nineteenth century; the way in which Germany was created, and the unity of Italy too; that is, not by a great number of States, of set design and in combination, chalking out something new, but on the contrary, by some great State acting first for its own convenience, and then other lesser and contiguous nations imitating its plan and falling in with its example. In this way France has now formed a great coinage league, which Switzerland and Italy have already joined, which Austria has agreed to join, which the Provisional Government of Spain has proclaimed, and which the United States have been asked to join. This league, of which the terms are completely stated further on, in fact takes the French standard and coinage for the universal standard and coinage, and uses them without alteration.

If we could adopt this coinage ourselves without material inconvenience, I confess I, for one, should urge our doing so. The advantages of a single coinage, which are explained in the following papers, seem to me fully equivalent. But I fear, when looked at strictly, it will be found that the difficulties of such a step are simply insurmountable. And if this is so, and we do nothing, what then? Why, we shall, to use the vulgar expression, be "left out in the cold". Germany has a currency to choose; none of her many currencies which have descended from her divided States are fit to be her exclusive currency, now that she is one. If things remain as now, she is sure to adopt the French currency; already there is a proposal in the Federal Parliament that she should take it. Before long all Europe, save England, will have one money, and England be left outstanding with another money.

This is a selfish reason for looking to our currency, but it is not the only reason. Every person must see that the demand for uniformity in currency is only one case of the growing demand for uniformity in matters between nations really similar. Many subjects, most subjects of legislation, vary between nation and nation; they depend on national association and peculiar

idiosyncrasy and other causes. identical; buying and selling, lending all the world over, and all matters cor versally to be alike too. In the old m -the universal custom of trade which took with him from country to count tion of a principle which we want special and very active legislatures by up everywhere old customary laws; must be a unity based on explicit tre ments. But the idea is the same. T see one Code de Commerce, and one m

We are, as yet, very distant from proposal set forth in these pages does the monetary part of the ideal. I fea universal money is not possible now; cause of its size. But I believe we moneys, two leading commercial cu could one by one join as they chose, a might be combined; and though this retical perfection, to the practical Engli more probable for that very reason.

THE ALLEGED AND THE REAL INTERNATIONAL CO

The Report of the Decimal Coin very sensible, though not a very origin it was not possible that so many cleve of minds would concur in anything re main point submitted to them they 1 conclusion. They were principally as was not wise to alter by twopence th sovereign in order to make it equivaler piece, and they have reported that it Instead, the Commissioners suggest tha