DEVELOPMENT OF THE MONETARY PROBLEM. 23 



less coherent bodies known as states and nations, the use of gold 

 and silver as money has the more extensively been sustained by 

 coinage — that is, the weight and fineness, and therefore to a degree 

 the value, of different portions of these metals have been evi- 

 denced by the stamp of the administrative bodies of states and 

 nations, and this use of gold and silver has been enhanced by 

 their exquisite luster. 



As commodities were exchanged in larger volume, metals of 

 the greatest value were coined. The extensions of intercourse 

 between races incident to the conquests of Philip and Alexander 

 were marked by the coinage of gold. At the time of the decem- 

 virs, the Romans passed from barter to the use of copper coins ; 

 as their commerce increased, the southern settlements along the 

 sea made use of silver, and, finally, after gold bullion had long 

 been the medium of exchange in Eastern commerce, Julius Csesar 

 opened the mints to gold. After the submersion of the Roman 

 Empire the coinage of gold was not resumed until the florin was 

 issued at Florence in 1252 — the extensive commerce initiated by 

 the Crusades demanding a more valuable medium than silver. 



The different weights, sizes, and shapes of coins made by dif- 

 ferent nations, the different units of value by which they have 

 been measured, and the different languages in which their values 

 have been expressed, have caused much confusion, as different 

 tribes, races, and nations have passed beyond restricted inter- 

 course between their own members to commercial intercourse 

 one with the other, or rather, as individuals of particular tribes, 

 races, and nations have undertaken commercial intercourse with 

 individuals of other tribes, races, and nations. Hence the money- 

 changers of antiquity, the remote forerunners of bankers who 

 arrange international exchanges to-day. With the combination 

 and recombination of tribes and races under governments, whose 

 administration has extended over considerable areas, the mone- 

 tary systems have become correspondingly fewer — the imperial 

 coinage of the German Empire supplanted seventy different coin- 

 age systems of the combined states — and coins of the different 

 nations have the more nearly approached uniformity in shape, 

 weight, size, and value. 



But even the precious metals, although they satisfy the re- 

 quirements for money better than any other commodities, do not 

 meet those requirements in perfection. 



In the first place, the amount of silver and gold in existence at 

 any one time is never in the same proportion to the volume and 

 value of the exchanges of that time as it is to the volume and value 

 of exchanges at other times — that is, the volume of gold and sil- 

 ver does not expand and contract in exact accord with the ex- 

 pansion and contraction of commerce. Nor is it conceivable that 



