40 



IV. G. Langzvorthy Taylor 



Legislation 

 on the stand- 

 ard of value is 

 a good exam- 

 ple of the 

 principle that 

 many laws are 

 merely a codi- 

 fication of 

 usage. 



Legislators 

 make a mis- 

 take when 

 they feel 

 warranted in 



last be said that in this epoch of the greatest wealth, the most 

 valuable of the available metals is the universally adopted 

 standard. 



Those who object to the gold standard say that this course of 

 history indicates that the original and real money of mankind 

 is silver. It is one thing to illustrate principles from history, 

 but quite a different thing to praise the revival of specific practices 

 of a former age. Arguments of that sort, however, can do little 

 harm. If the facts are known, every person is at liberty to 

 draw his own conclusions. 



§8. A metallic standard is, then, more or less a matter of 

 usage. Governments have not directly prescribed what their 

 subjects and citizens should employ as a means of exchange, but 

 simply what they should use as a "legal tender," in other words, 

 in those most usual payments of debt where there is an absence 

 of previous special agreement between the parties as to the 

 material to be applied ; or what they should devote to the payment 

 of taxes. In making regulations of this nature, governments 

 do but enact for special cases the employment of the material 

 already generally consecrated by usage. If, however, the enact- 

 ment precede the general usage, the latter might then be a con- 

 sequence of the former in the sense that the absence of the 

 practice of special agreements would show that men were con- 

 tented to use generally what had been prescribed only for the 

 possibly exceptional cases. But it is not only through the legisla- 

 ture that government can mould the law of legal tender. The 

 courts are equally efficacious to that end. If a debtor fails to 

 pay his creditor, the latter goes to the judges and in substance, 

 asks them in what shall the debt be paid? But they follow the 

 custom of merchants, or of the locality. Hence, the legal-tender 

 regulation silently enacted by society and embedded in custom is 

 sanctioned through the bench. 



Bimetallism steps outside of the bounds set by custom. It has 

 its origin not so much in juridical decrees as in attempts on the 

 part of parliaments to enact remedial legislation. It says that the 

 debtor shall be entitled to pay the creditor, in either gold or 

 silver, at a fixed ratio, say i6 to i. If a certain amount by 



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