practical common sense of mankind discovered that they could always be relied upon as being acceptable on the part of anybody who had anything to sell.  In the matter of durability, their power to resist wear and tear was obviously much greater than that of the hides and tobacco and other commodities then fulfilling the functions of currency in primitive communities.  They could also be carried about much more conveniently than the cattle which have been believed to have fulfilled the functions of currency in certain places, and they were capable of sub-division without any impairing of their value, that is to say, of their acceptability.  Merely as currency, precious metals thus have advantages over any other commodity that can be thought of for this purpose.

So far, however, we have only considered the needs of man for currency; that is to say, for a medium of exchange for the time being.  It is obvious, however, that any commodity which fulfils this function, that is to say, is normally taken in payment in the exchange of commodities and services, also necessarily acquires a still more important duty, that is, it becomes a standard of value, and it is on the alleged failure of gold to meet the requirements of the standard of value that the present attack upon it is based.  On this point the defenders of the gold standard will find a good deal of difficulty in discovering anything but a negative defence.  The ideal standard of value is one which does not vary, and it cannot be contended that gold from this point of view has shown any approach to perfection in fulfilling this function.  It could only do so if the supply of it available as currency could by some miracle be kept in constant relation with, the supply of all other commodities and services that are being produced by mankind.  That it should be constant with each one of them is, of course, obviously impossible, since the rate at which, for example, wheat and pig-iron are being produced necessarily varies from time to time as compared with one another.  Variations in the price of wheat and pig-iron are thus inevitable, but it can at least be claimed by idealists in currency matters that some form of currency might possibly be devised, the amount of which might always be in agreement with the amount of the total output of saleable goods, in the widest sense of the word, that is being created for man’s use.

It need not be said that this desirability of a constant agreement between the volume of currency and the volume of goods coming forward for exchange is based on what is called the quantitative theory of money.  This theory is still occasionally called in question, but is on the whole accepted by most economists of to-day, and seems to me to be a mere arithmetical truism if we only make the meaning of the word “currency” wide enough; that is to say, if we define it as including all kinds of commodities, including pieces of paper and credit instruments, which are normally accepted