202 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



themselves, and this contributed to make unpopular an administration 

 which put itself away from the wants and the reach of the people, violently- 

 broke with their usages, habits, and customs, as a Greek or Tartar con- 

 queror might have done, who with uplifted rod intended to compel obe- 

 dience to all his desires based upon his own prejudices and interests, 

 regardless of those of the conquered. 



The new system of weights and measures will be a subject of embarrass- 

 ment and difficulties for many generations; and the first commissiou 

 charged with the verification of the measure of the meridian will probably 

 find that there are some corrections to be made. This is tormenting the 

 people with caprices. 



THE MONETARY PROBLEM. 



By LOGAN G. McPHEESON. 



AS has been perceived, it is by the constant exchange of human 

 -^- effort that human welfare is promoted, and therefore is 

 necessarily a means whereby each portion of effort contributing 

 to the total welfare may be measured and rewarded. This means 

 or medium of exchange is money, and its development has been 

 as follows : 



First, there was barter, or the direct exchange of commodity 

 for commodity. Next, there was the disposal of commodities in 

 exchange for a generally acceptable and readily disposed of com- 

 modity, the first form of money. By reason of their suitability, 

 one or another of the metals becomes generally used as such a 

 commodity, and as commodities are exchanged in larger volume, 

 metals of the greatest value are coined. Then, there is the use of 

 paper promises to pay coin issued from various sources and ac- 

 cepted to the extent that their security is believed in. Then these 

 representatives of coin gradually pass into paper representatives 

 of value, as evidenced by the result of effort, and by means of 

 banks paper representatives of value are offset against other 

 paper representatives of value without the intervention of coin 

 at all. 



But the progression through barter and the use of metals as 

 money to the use of paper representatives of value has not been 

 uniform either in time or place. There are still tribes in out-of- 

 the-way regions who make rude exchanges by barter, and there 

 are races between the individuals of whom the exchange of effort 

 is uncertain and irregular, whose currencies are composed almost 

 exclusively of lead, tin, copper, and iron. There are not only 

 marked points of difference between the monetary systems of dif- 

 ferent nations, but in many instances one and the same nation 

 still uses coins of different metals, of different weights, and differ- 

 ent degrees of fineness, the values of which are not in definite 



