Financial Legislation and its Limitations. 59 



tabular standard adoi>ted internationally, and some nation chosen 

 as common agent to maintain the circulation at par with it by 

 purchase of coin with bullion when prices are too high, or sale, 

 when they are too low. The objections offered by Professor 

 O. M. W. Sprague*'* are: (i) that the prices of other countries 

 would not be quickly readjusted to the level of the corrected 

 prices of the fiscal agent country; (2) that the artificial process 

 "would seem to subject the business of the world to a never- 

 ending succession of abrupt changes"; (3) "once limit the coin- 

 age of gold, and the value of gold coin and gold bullion may 

 diverge to an indefinite extent." 



REFERENCES ON STANDARDS OF VALUE 



Meaning of "Standard": S. Dana Horton, Silver Pound, ch. I, "The 

 Three Standards," pp. i-io; Walker, Money, pp. 1-23, also pp. 281-88 

 (nioney not a measure of value, hut a common denominator) ; Walker, 

 Political Economy, part VI, ch. XIV; Jevons, Mechanism, ch. Ill, "The 

 Functions of Money," pp. 14-19; Jordan, pp. 71-73; L. S. Merriam and J. 

 B. Clark, "Money as a Measure of Value," Annals of the American 

 Academy, May, 1894; Walker, International BimetaUism, p. 147 (the ques- 

 tion of an uniform ratio distinct from the question of standard) ; Helm, 

 The Joint Standard, chs. I-IV; Darwin, Bimetallism, chs. II, III; Atkin- 

 son's Report, "What is Bimetallism?" p. 13; Horton, Silver and Gold, 

 chs. Ill, IV; Sterns, "A New Standard and a New Currency," Journal 

 of Political Economy, September, 1898; Lord Liverpool, On the Coins of 

 the Realm, ch. XV; Chevalier, On Gold, ch. II; Brough, Open Mints, 

 ch. I; Stokes, Joint Mctallisni, part II; Giffen, The Case against Bi- 

 metallism, ch. IX. 



Gresham's Law: Jevons, Mechanistn, ch. VIII, "The Principles of Cir- 

 culation," pp. 67-68; Laughlin, Bimetallism in the United States, pp. 26, 

 27 ; McLeod, Theory of Credit, p. 397. 



Compensatory Theory: Jevons, Mechanism, ch. IX, of the Standards, 

 pp. 136-51; Walker, Money, ch. XIII, "Battle of the Standards"; idem, 

 Political Economy, 566; Wolowski, L'or ct I'argent, p. 28 (pendulum 

 simile) ; R. F. Ho.xie, " The Compensatory Theory of Bimetallism," 

 Jotirnal of Political Economy, March, 1893; Cernuschi, Nomisma, p. 108; 

 Jordan, Standard of Value; Fisher, Purchasing Power of Money, 115. 



*' O. M. W. Sprague, " Fisher's Purchasing Power of Money," Quar- 

 terly Journal of Economics, XXVI, 140, Nov., 191 1. 



173 



