SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, MARCH 35, 1887. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 

 Peof. Alfred Majrshall, the university suc- 

 cessor of Fawcett. comes forward in the current 

 number of the Contemporary review to propose 

 remedies for fluctuations of general prices. His 

 thesis is that the greater part of the fluctuations 

 of general prices are not of such a nature as to be 

 capable of being diminished, as some suppose, by 

 the adoption of two metals instead of one as the 

 basis of currency, but that the true and only 

 effective remedy for them lies in divorcing the 

 currency from the standard of value, and estab- 

 lishing some other and authoritative standard of 

 purchasing power independent of the currency. 

 This is a plan by no means new in the literature 

 of economics, but Professor Marshall urges it with 

 particular reference to present economic condi- 

 tions. His first step is to prove the evils of a 

 fluctuating standard of value, which is a tolerably 

 easy task. The second step will meet with more 

 opposition ; namely, that the precious metals can- 

 not afford a good standard of value. By an in- 

 geniously constructed diagram, the writer illus- 

 trates the fact that prices show about as much 

 variation when estimated in terms of the two 

 metals, gold and silver, as they do when estimated 

 in gold alone. From this he infers that the adop- 

 tion of a bimetallic standard would, in the long- 

 run, give us prices hardly more stable than they 

 are now. In order to the estabhshment of a bi- 

 metallic standard, however, negotiations with other 

 countries would have to be entered into. Before 

 undertaking this. Professor Marshall asks that in- 

 quiry be made as to whether the standard of 

 value ought not to be altogether independent of 

 the currency. 



" The industrial arts generally," says the writer, 

 " have progressed by substituting several special- 

 ized instruments for one that used to be applied 

 for many purposes. The chisel and the plane, the 

 hammer and the saw, are all developments of the 

 primeval tomahawk : they do their work well, 

 because none of them is expected to cover a 

 wide range of work. And so, if we have one 



No. 216 — 1887. 



thing as a medium of exchange, and another as a 

 standard of value, each may be able to perform its 

 share of the work thoroughly well, because it is 

 specially fitted for it. The currency will retain a 

 material form, so that it may 'run' from hand to 

 hand as a medium of exchange ; while the amount 

 of the currency which is required to discharge a 

 contract for deferred payment will be regufeted 

 neither by weight nor measure, but by an authori- 

 tative table of figures issued from time to time by 

 a government." This supposititious goveinment 

 department, then, would extend to all commodi- 

 ties the action now taken by the English commis- 

 sioners of tithes with regard to barley, wheat, and 

 oats. It would ascertain from time to time the 

 prices of all important commodities, and publish 

 at intervals the amount of money required to give 

 the same purchasing power as one pound had at 

 the beginning of, say, 1887. This standard unit 

 of purchasing power Professor Marshall would call 

 the ' unit.' In effecting a loan, it could be made ta 

 currency or in units. If made in imits, the lender 

 would know that whatever change might take place 

 in the value of money, whether it were an appreci- 

 ation or depreciation, he would receive on the repay- 

 ment of his loan an amount of money that would 

 enable him to purchase just as much and as many 

 commodities as the amount he had loaned. Under 

 this plan Professor Marshall believes that the 

 heavy risks caused by a general rise and fall in 

 prices would be avoided, and each trade would be 

 left to contend with its own peculiar dangers only. 

 His standard, he admits, would not be free from 

 all imperfections, nor always easy to obtain, but 

 it would be as serviceable for its purpose as a yard- 

 measure, and the same sort of an advance over the 

 use of the value of gold, or even the mean between 

 the values of gold and silver, as a standard, as is 

 the substitution of the yard-stick for the length 

 of the foot of one judge or for the mean between 

 the lengths of the feet of two. 



The resxjlts of the study of typhoid -fever 

 in both this country and Europe during the past 

 decade have been of great value to sanitarians 

 and to the public. It would seem that the facts 

 already discovered must indicate methods by 

 which this disease, which is well-nigh universal, 



