PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS — SECTION P. 335 



pebbles became the currency of Egypt, by means of which 

 symbols liis subjects might distribute the remainder of the food 

 among themselves more readily than by direct barter. It has 

 pleased the money-changers of the age to pass into slang, for 

 the use of those unacquainted with the methods of commerce, 

 that "Barter would be a relapse into barbarism." When the 

 masses of the people are better informed they will remember 

 that all the business of the world is transacted by one kind of 

 barter or another. There is not a politician here to-day, 

 whether a Protectionist or a Freetrader, who does not hinge 

 his arguments on the relative proportions of the exports and 

 imports of this colony of New Zealand ; and what is that but 

 casting liis language in the time-honoured mould of barter ? 

 Then, when does barter become inconvenient ? First, in deal- 

 ing with comparatively iusignificaut quantities of a commodity, 

 on account of the difficulty of dividing and moving such small 

 quantities over considerable distances; and, second, because 

 the exchange of goods in kind does not admit of their being so 

 easily sweated by their distributors as by the intervention of 

 the token — money. 



Silver and silver-certificates have been referred to. The 

 silver-men of America know what was understood in King 

 Solomon's time — that immense quantities of available silver 

 cause its purchasing-power to diminish. Hence they have set 

 all their ingenuity to work, aided by all the political influence 

 they can command by bribery and other means, to persuade 

 the public into the belief that, in spite of the vast quantity of 

 silver that is now being raised in excess of its economic uses, 

 it is possible to maintain for it the same purchasing-power 

 — which means, from their standpoint, the same selling-price 

 — that it formerly possessed. To this end, the general tax- 

 payer of the United States pays for all the labour of the 

 persons engaged in silver-mining, in fabricating the machinery 

 engaged therein, down to the last person who earns his 

 living from the industry of striking silver coinage, instead of 

 these hosts of workers being engaged in the production of 

 some useful article of food or commerce. But these silver- 

 men conjure up for justification the immensely over-issued 

 paper currency of Argentina. The over-value these men 

 put upon their silver stands on no better basis than the 

 inflated price put upon copper by the French syndicate, or the 

 over-issued face-value of the Argentine paper. The worth of 

 gold, silver, copper, paper, as money depends solely on its total 

 volume, and on the rapidity with which it circulates. This 

 great dynamic fact has been purposely kept in the background 

 till those who ought to know better have come to overlook its 

 existence, in order that the pubhc might, through not under- 

 standing the true doctrine of the currency, more easily become 



