i9o8.] 



COPERNICUS AND GRESHAM. 27 



" It is incontestable that the countries that make use of good currency 

 shine in all the arts, have better workmen, and have of everything in abund- 

 ance. On the contrary, in the States which make use of a degraded money, 

 reigns cowardice, laziness and indolence." 



In order to remedy the distress to which Prtissia had been brought 

 by the falsification and debasement of the currency, and to draw 

 Prussia and Poland closer together by developing their commercial 

 relations, it was necessary to coin two moneys of equal intrinsic 

 value, so that they would circulate concurrently in the two lands. 

 One should bear one one side the royal arms of Poland and on the 

 other those of the Prussian land. The other money should likewise 

 have on one side the royal arms of Poland, but on the other the 

 imprint of the prince, that is, the efifigy of the king. 



" For the first condition to maintain, is that one and the other currency 

 remain under the royal authority, and that they be current and accepted in 

 the whole kingdom by virtue of the prescription of His Majestj^; which would 

 be not of a mediocre importance for the conciliation of public opinion and for 

 reciprocal transactions. 



" It would be necessary that these two currencies should be of the same 

 degree of fineness, having a similar real value and a similar nominal value, 

 so that, by vigilant care, the State succeeds to maintan perpetually the regu- 

 lation which it is now question to establish ; it does not belong to princes 

 to obtain any profit from the money that they shall coin; they shall add only 

 so much alloy as may be necessary for the difference between the real value 

 and the nominal value to cover the cost of minting, which will avoid the 

 principal attraction to remelt it. 



" It would be necessar}^, at the time of the emission of the new money, 

 to demonetise the old and forbid entirely its use, allowing it to be exchanged 

 at the mints, in the just proposition of the intrinsic value. Otherwise it 

 would be labor lost to wish to reestablish good money; the confusion that 

 would ensue would be perhaps even worse than the actual state of affairs. 

 The old money would crush all the advantages of the new." 



Then Copernicus explained that gold and silver were the base 

 upon which rested the value of money ; and went on to show that 

 in order to maintain them both in circulation the ratio between them 

 must agree with the commercial ratio that existed between them. 



" It remains," he went on, " for us to expound the manner of the mutual 

 exchange of gold and silver. In order to pass from the class to the kind 

 and from the simple to the composite, it is necessary first to know the price 

 of pure gold to pure silver. It is known that the same exists between pure 



