Credit Money and the Precious Metals, 253 



more variable from year to year, than money (that is gold 

 or silver) rents. Ricardo was also evidently influenced -by a 

 similar thought when he wrote to Malthus on October 17th, 

 181 5, " I think with you, that, on the whole, silver would be 

 a better standard than gold " {^Letters of David Ricardo to 

 Thomas Robert Malthus^ 1810 to 182^. Letter XXXVIIl). 

 Wheat owes its relative steadiness, in terms of other 

 commodities, to the fact that it is one of the class of 

 commodities producible at will, but it is liable to sudden 

 temporary variations in exchangeable value, in consequence 

 •of natural causes, such as failures of the crops. For this 

 reason, and also because of its bulk, its perishable nature, 

 ■and other conditions, on which I need not dwell, wheat 

 and many other commodities, however steady they might 

 be on the average, are not suitable for the payment of 

 debts, for storing value, or for easy world-wide circulation, 

 functions which must be fulfilled by true monetary ions. 



It would be going over old ground to proceed to 

 show how peculiarly suitable to these several purposes 

 the precious metals are by reason of their peculiar 

 -qualities as metals. But when we consider their special 

 appropriateness as monetary ions^ it is necessary to call 

 attention to the fact that their suitableness in con- 

 tradistinction to credit-money rests on the fact that 

 they have a force within themselves. Now that natural 

 force is derived from the labour spent in their produc- 

 tion and their utility as metals. There is a good deal 

 •of philosophy in a remark made by a delegate at the 

 Canadian Trades and Labour Congress held in London, 

 Ontario, in 1888. A proposal was brought forward that 

 in future the Dominion Government should no longer 

 borrow money for the construction of public works, but 

 should meet the cost by an issue of legal tender notes. Mr. 

 A. F. Jury, in opposing the motion, observed pithily that 

 he did not believe in exchanging the product of his labour 



