The Waipawa Mail Published Tuesdays, Thursdays & Saturdays. THURSDAY, MAY 16, 1895.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XVIII, Issue 3228, 16 May 1895, Page 2

The Waipawa Mail Published Tuesdays, Thursdays & Saturdays. THURSDAY, MAY 16, 1895.

THE EVOLUTION OF MONEY. Coi/ONEXi G-. W. Bex.li, the United States Consul in New South Wales, lately delivered a lecture before the Sydney Institute of Bankers on the “ Evolution of Money.” The Colonel is an authority on banking matters and his remarks are worthy of attention, especially during the present time of general depression. During the course of his speech Colonel Beei, said trade in modern times meant sale and purchase. Money was the active factor in all business. It was the stream on which trade flowed. Only when we bought did trade take place. There was a great question troubling the world at the present time about the adjustment of things. Now, he was an evolutionist. He thought man came from the smallest and most simple thing and had developed into the highest and most complex of beings. But after we reached a certain point there would be retrogression. We were made up of the past, but we were the architects of the future. So far as we could trace civilisation we could trace commerce To start with, a black man at the risk of his life may have traded with another tribe; now we had stately steamers trading with all parts of the world. Thus trade had grown step by step. With all its developments it still necessitated the employment of money. Without money the highest civilised people in the world would have been barbarians. Money controlled all other things and helped in our civilisation. Now, did money justify itself to the necessity of trade, or had trade been cramped and made to accommodate itself to the necessities of money ? The first Australian who traded an oppossum skin for a boomerang was a merchant. There might not have been a money exchange. Money had grown as well as trade. It was astonishing how soon man came to appreciate the precious metals. First they were used as ornaments. Everyone wanted them and everyone would exchange something for them. Women, perhaps, first desired ornaments ; but the men had to get them for them—whether they were gold, silver or shells. Soon gold and silver became valuable, and

thus there arose a medium of exchange. No one could got too much of them. It was money. At first the metals were used in the rough ; questions arose about their fineness and value ; and business began to be done on credit. This was trading on integrity, and it expanded commerce. It created confidence in. man ; and was the establishment of trade. There came the thought to some one that they ought to establish the weight and the fineness of the gold and the silver, and the princes or the rulers weighed it. Then they stamped it, and so coins were established. But. we had to employ gold and silver still because the credit given was simply on the promise that the precious metal was to follow. Not even to-day could many people appreciate the difference between the intrinsic value of the thing and in the thing. Step by step the credit system and the note system grew ; but gold and silver were still as they always had been, the real money. Of course, there bad been fluctuations ; but both metals stood on the same equality until 1873. Then there was a change. Why, it might be asked ? It was a fact that in the last 50 years civilisation had taken more strides than in all time before from Abraham to Gladstone. It was an open question why the change was made. There were honest opinions on the matter —and perhaps some which were not honest. Some of these opinions might have been obtained ready made. But one had to look with suspicion on an opinion that gave the other man the advantage of the deal. The American war, to use an illustration, was one of the most costly in the world, and one of the most disastrous. The whole country was plunged in mourning. Gold and silver disappeared. It showed its incapacity to meet the requirements of the time. What did the Americans do ? They issued paper money. Taxes were imposed to redeem the paper, and practically when the guns were silenced the United States was not in debt. The rebellion was put down with paper money, because there was no other kiod of money. The paper was a debt, perhaps, but then the people themselves held it, and they made more farms and built more railways and houses immediately afterwards than any other people on the face of the world. But change followed change. Then one part of the currency was demonetised—that was silver. To-day the money of the world was gold. That was now the money system of the world. For his own part he regarded gold and silver as a relic of barbarism, and if there could be a paper money, properly regulated as to amount, it would be the best money ever devised by man. When Government took the paper there was an end of the thing. That was the highest test. The Government was the people bound together. If they agreed together what they would use in their business and they all took it, nothing more would be wanted. All would take it. It was said that gold and silver had an intrinsic value; but silver had not so much as it used to have. Why not have a currency without any intrinsic value ? This could be regulated in amount so as to suit every business. The currency was simply a medium of exchanging commodity for commodity. It was impossible now to use gold absolutely as the medium. We needed more money to perform the business of the world to-day than ever before. The bankers did their business with cheques ; wealthy people did business with drafts ; and a good deal of business was done on credit. But at the same time the great body of the people carried their credit in their pockets and paid with money. It was said that labour was unemployed because there was over-production. But there could not be over-production of clothing whilst many children were half naked. Thero could not be an over-production of food whilst people were starving. It was a mockery to say that people were sleeping in the parks because there was an overproduction of houses. The cause was that there was a lack of exchange. There was never a time in the history of the world when a man wanted so many things as he wanted to-day. The labouring man of the present had more wants to be satisfied than the prince of 300 years ago. It took more people now to attend to the exchange than it took men to make tho goods. The question of employment was the most difficult one. He did not think the time had come for men to work less hours. It took more men—longer hours to satisfy the wants of this age than it ever took before in the history of the world ; but when one man was idle somebody’s wants went unsatisfied. As long as the cost of living rose so wages must rise, so long as the world was progressing. There was no limit to wages ; they would rise until civilisation reached the climax.