CURRENCY AND FARMING. 11 



Now, if you should go up to Prof. Shephard's cabinet, in 

 the college, you would see the model of what is called the 

 "Welcome Nugget," found in Australia, which weighed, in 

 pure gold, to the value of $40,000. Well, the miner who 

 found it stumbled upon it by the merest chance ; and you say, 

 "How did this cost him labor?" Well, it did not cost that 

 miner labor, to be sure ; but it represented exactly what that 

 amount of gold would cost on an average. Men who seek 

 gold have got to give so much labor in order to get that 

 amount, and if any man stumbles upon the precious metal, 

 that accident does not disturb the rule. There is no wealth 

 which has not labor in it. It is that which is useful to a man, 

 and that which costs labor to get it ; and thus we are prepared 

 to see that, if there is something useful that costs labor to get 

 it, every one wants' it, and every one is willing to do some- 

 thing to get it in proportion to his sense of need. 



Wealth is of various sorts ; houses, cattle, well-cultivated 

 farms, are wealth. All these may be wealth, but not the 

 particular kind of wealth we may need at some certain time. 

 A store full of boots and shoes is wealth, but the man who 

 owns them may need something else, and, therefore, he is 

 eager to exchange these for something that everybody is 

 willing to take. Now, we want something by which we can 

 regulate such exchanges ; the one has got to balance the other. 

 Thus the advantage in having some standard, in order to tell 

 us just how much wealth is represented by any commodity. 

 This standard is money, and this is the difference between 

 money and wealth. Wealth needs a standard of value, in 

 order to tell how much wealth is worth, so that we may know 

 how to exchange our products, and thus money is a standard 

 of value. 



Now, these two things will give us the notion exactly what 

 money is. It is always a standard of value, and it is a medium 

 of exchange. These two things have got to belong to money 

 everywhere money is found. In order to be a standard of 

 value, it has got to be valuable, — that is, it has got to cost 

 labor, and it has got to be something which people will desire, 

 — both these in order to be a standard of value. And, if you 

 keep both these elements in mind, it is possible, you see, to 

 have anything as a standard value. Are you aware what the 



