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Principles of Banks and Banking of Money, as Coin and Paper
Principles of Banks and Banking of Money as Coin and Paper Author:James Stewart Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. Methods which may be proposed for lessening the several inconveniences to which material Money is liable. this chapter I shall point out ... more »the methods which may he proposed for lessening the inconveniences to which all coin is liable, in order thereby to mala; it resemble as much as possible the invariable scale of ideal money of account. The inconveniences from the variation in the relative value of the metals to .one another, may in .some measure be obviated by the following expedients: First, By considering one only as the standard, and leaving the other to seek its own value, like any other commodity. Secondly, By considering one only as the standard, and fixing the value of the other from time to time by authority, according as the market price of the metals shall vary. Thirdly, By fixing the standard of the unit according to the mean proportion of the metals, attaching it to neither; regulating the coin accord"ingly; and upon every considerable variation in the proportion between them, either to make a pew coinage, or to raise the denomination of one of the species, and lower it in the other, in order to preserve the unit exactly in the mean proportion between the gold and silver. In order to explain this thought, let me observe, that the consequence of every variation in the proportion between the value of gold and silver, has this effect; namely, that the same weight of silver acquires upon every change a different value in gold, from what it had before; and the eame weight of gold acqijires, upon the change, a different value in silver from what it had before. Let me illustrate this by an example. Suppose, then, the value of gold to be to the value of silver, as 1 to 14. Then 100 grains of gold will be worth 1400 grains of silver. S...« less