JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. Il 
inherent qualities of durability and fixity of inherent value best suited 
foramedium: Gold or silver—sometimes one, sometimes the other, 
never both at the same time in the same locality—were first chosen 
as a standard of value and as a medium of exchange, and when coined 
into pieces with the state’s mark affixed to warrant the weight and 
degree of fineness, this medium was called money. 
Mr. Crerar then referred to the distinction between interna- 
tional and national, or domestic money. The former was used in 
commerce ; the latter intrade. Thirty years ago it required $17 to 
effect the exchange in money—to effect the exchange of $100 worth 
of produce between nation and nation. To-day probably not more 
than $2 was used for that purpose. The ocean cables, fast sailing 
steam vessels, extended telegraphic and telephonic systems, had 
effected an enormous saving in the waste of capital consisting of the 
precious metals devoted to the purpose of facilitating barter between 
nation and nation. In trade, statistics showed precisely what money 
was used to facilitate domestic barter. France had the largest per 
capita volume of domestic money in the world, and Canada, ex- 
cepting China and India, whose dense populations were exceptional, 
had the smallest. Nevertheless, the Canadian currency, with its 
domestic money constantly in use, was ample and was as safe as 
the currency of England, If the currency system were adopted by 
all of the trading and industrial nations, thousands of millions of 
dollars of the world’s surplus wealth now playing the part of a ma- 
chine to facilitate barter would be released and restored to pro- 
ductive purposes. 
The popular notion is that the circulation of money stimulates 
trade. Money makes the mare go, This is a fallacy, Mr. Crerar con- 
tended. Trade make money circulate. The circulation of money 
is an effect, not a cause. A united effort by the government and 
the banks to increase the amount of money in circulation would 
prove abortive. The greatest expansion in the volume of Canadian 
currency is in the month of November ; its lowest contraction is in 
May. Neither the banks nor parliament could turn that around and 
reverse the May and November conditions. Similarly, there is no 
power to increase the Canadian currency from $9.50 a head of our 
population to $15 a head asin England As well expect the corner 
