Io THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 
Mr. Crerar began by stating that he felt some hesitation in 
selecting this pirticular subject, because it constituted a branch of 
political economy, and in his experience political economy in Can- 
ada was generally regarded as a branch of party politics, and on 
that account was practically tabooed from popular discussion. It 
always appeared anamolous to him that while astronomy, chemistry, 
geology or even theology—the most fruitful of all acrimonious argu- 
ment—were considered scientific subjects, political economy, taught 
in all our colleges and universities as a science, was deemed objec- 
tionable in the conversation of social intellectual life, because it in- 
volved party politics. He hoped his hearers were not such slaves to 
any political party as to be incapable of considerlng this branch of 
political economy, as a branch of a science based upon immutable 
principles. 
The lecturer then entered into his subject, and defined money 
as that portion of the world’s accummulated wealth abstracted from 
productive capital, and set apart as an agent to facilitate barter. 
Money was an expensive machine kindred to weights and measures 
in utility, although infinitely more expensive. The metallic money 
of the world amounted to something like $8 per head of the popu- 
lation of the civilized human race, and that enormous sum was ab- 
stracted from the world’s capital for the mechanical purpose of 
making the residue more productive. He then traced the history 
of money. Its origin could only be conjectured. its necessity arose 
when the introduction of the division of labor had stimulated pro- 
duction into a vast variety of products. Barter became an impossi- 
bility. Without some common measure of value by reference to 
which the exchange value of all products was expressed, the rela- 
tive value of one product with another became impossible. 
An immense number of individua! products had been chosen 
for this common standard. Skins, cattle, corn, oil, shells and even 
wrought straw, had been selected as a common standard. A standard 
of value need not necessarily be any material object. A merename, 
as a mental calculus, was sufficient. But the common standard of 
value was not enough to render barter practicable. A medium of 
exchange was found necessary. As ultimately the precious metals 
were selected as the common standard these were found from their 
