Robinson Crusoe's Money Part 4

But, be this as it may, all who had loaned valuable commodities desired to avoid tapping, and consequently hastened to demand repayment before the ideal money could be extensively issued and put into circulation; and, having once obtained payment, were very cautious how they lent again. All this contributed, in the language of the day, to make money very tight; but this language had, to a great extent, no meaning. The only money that was tight was good money, and this had been gone so long that the younger part of the population didn't even know how it looked; while of the bad money there was a continually increasing quant.i.ty.

Besides good money, all real capital, timber for building s.h.i.+ps, factories, and houses, iron for the construction of machinery, cloth for clothes, and grain for food, were tight; not because there was any lack of all these useful things, but because the owners had all become afraid that if they once loaned or parted with them they should never receive back an equivalent. So the island, instead of being lifted up to great prosperity, was plunged into the depths of adversity. There was a general lack of confidence. Societary activity was abated; production was arrested; and men desirous of being industrious had no opportunity of following any industry.

Gold had long disappeared from circulation. Although produced in large quant.i.ties on the island, none of it would stay there, but flowed off to foreign countries in a steady stream. The common explanation of this phenomenon was, that gold had become the cheapest thing the island produced, and was, therefore, the first thing exported. But a majority of those who said and heard this did not clearly see that the average purchasing power of gold the world over had not varied in any degree; but that the price of almost every other thing produced on the island had so varied and relatively increased, by reason of domestic fiscal circ.u.mstances, that it was far better for the foreigner to take pay in gold for all the commodities he sold to the island, and then, with this gold, purchase in other countries the very things which the island specially produced and wanted to sell. As already intimated, the islanders found great difficulty in understanding this little arrangement; but the foreigners understood it as by intuition, and never failed to act upon it. [31] All of this further contributed to turn upside down and inside out the industries of the island; and while the Friends of Humanity continued to loudly proclaim that the issue of more money would cure all difficulties, the people, sorely distressed, and ready to accept relief from any quarter, began to loudly murmur, in turn, at what seemed an unnecessary delay in making the issue; the fact being, that although public opinion was nearly unanimous on the subject, the regular time for the Congress of the island to meet and enact the laws had not come round.

At last, the long-expected day arrived, and Congress a.s.sembled. All the special and immediate Friends of "More Money," of "Ideal Money," and of "Humanity," were members; and hardly had the presiding officer taken his seat before fifty men sprung for the floor, each with a resolution demanding immediate fiscal legislation. The first resolution adopted was, that the Government should at once supply all the money which the wants of every body, and every trade and industry, might, could, would, or should require; and that the money thus issued should be a legal tender for the payment of all debts, past, present, and prospective.

The next important question was, In what manner should the new and unlimited supply of money be distributed? All saw at once that it would never do to commence on a system of giving unlimited something for unlimited nothing; and yet, if this was not done, how was it possible for the wants of those who had nothing, and who, of course, wanted money for this reason most imperatively, to be supplied? Besides, to create an unlimited supply of the new money, it would be necessary to have a good many hundreds of thousands of slips of paper with the words, "This is a dollar," "This is ten dollars," or "This is--"

(some other amount), properly and artistically printed on them; all of which, in turn, would require a great expenditure, not only of ink and paper, but also of time; while the necessity of the hour was for immediate relief, especially to trade. It was therefore decided to leave the troublesome question of equal distribution for a time unsettled, and endeavor to first relieve trade by doubling the volume of the currency. And in order to do this at once, and without cost to the Government for engraving, printing, paper, and ink, it was therefore enacted that every one having legal-tender currency might cut or divide the same into two equal halves or pieces, and that each of these halves or pieces so resulting should be a legal tender to the full amount that the whole had previously been. At first thought, this proposition to exclude all those who had no money from partic.i.p.ation in the new supply seemed most palpably unfair and unjust, but a little consideration satisfied to the contrary; for unless it was proposed to give away the new money, it was obvious that those only would get it who had money, and that the proportion which all such would obtain would be in proportion to what money they already had. It was, therefore, deemed wise to antic.i.p.ate what was certain to be the ultimate result, and distribute it in the manner indicated.

CHAPTER XII.

GETTING SOBER.

It was expected that this new and immense volume of currency, poured at once on to the wheels of trade, would immediately start the wheels. But, somehow, it didn't seem to have that effect at all. The wheels not only would not revolve, but the friction on them seemed to have become more persistent and chronic than ever. In fact, the doubling the volume of the currency, instead of increasing the before existing instrumentalities for facilitating exchanges, had really diminished them; for all who were willing to exchange commodities for the new currency either doubled the price of their commodities, or gave only half the quant.i.ty for what they regarded as half of the former money; so that with all this cla.s.s the abundance of currency was relatively the same as before. But the majority who had any thing to sell would not accept the ideal money in exchange at all. They did not claim, they said, to be financiers, or philosophers, or even special friends of humanity; but they did think that they were not such fools that they could be made to believe that the half of a thing was equal to the whole, or that one bushel of grain could be converted into two by putting one bushel into two half-bushel measures.

The only really positive effect of the doubling of the volume of the currency in the manner authorized by law was, therefore, to scale all debts to the extent of fifty per cent., and in such a manner that creditors were wholly unable to help themselves; for by terms of the act every one dollar of old legal tender was now made two for all new legal-tender purposes. In this way the people on the island soon learned a most important elementary lesson in finance, which was, that the only one attribute of legal tender which is imperative and unavoidable [32] is its inherent power of canceling or liquidating debts or of tapping creditors--and this, too, irrespective of the endowment of the legal tender with any real or representative value. So that a truthful designation of the act in question would have been "An act to relieve debtors from half of their obligations, and swindle creditors to a corresponding extent of what was due them by the debtor's acknowledgment."

To the credit of the people of the island it must be recorded that, as a general rule, they were too honorable to take advantage of the law to do so wrong and mean a thing; [33] but the knowledge that every debtor had it in his power to so act, and the fear that some would take advantage of their unquestionable legal privileges, contributed still further to bring all business to a stand-still.

There was also a curious phenomenon incident to the situation, and pertaining to the rate of interest, which excited no little comment and attention. Every body took it for granted that with an unlimited supply of money a low rate of interest would prevail, and that, however much the financiers and philosophers might disagree about other things, this one result would be certain. An eminently practical man in one of the public debating societies of the island thought he had definitely, and for all time, settled the question by authoritatively remarking that "an abundance of money does produce enterprise, prosperity, and progress;" "that when money was plenty interest would be lower," just as when horses and hogs are abundant, horses and hogs would be cheap. He, for one, "put aside all these old theories, these plat.i.tudes of finance." There was "no vitality in them." He preferred "to take the actual results, and the actual condition of the country, and let theory go to the dogs." [34]

There was so much of originality and home sense in these remarks, so much of a lordly contemning of the teachings of musty old experience, that the friends of the orator thought him much more worthy than ever of the executive chair formerly filled by the wise Robinson Crusoe. But, unfortunately for the orator, he hadn't got far enough along in his financial primer to appreciate the difference between capital and currency; and in the simplicity of his heart imagined that it was all the same, whether we had pictures of horses, hogs, and money, or real horses, hogs, and money, which represent and are acc.u.mulated by labor. So the things which he thus settled in opposition to theory and experience wouldn't stay settled; and the islanders in due time came to a realizing sense of the following truths: that the more of a redundant, irredeemable paper that is issued, the more it depreciates, and the more it is depreciated, the more there is required of it to transact business; and that if any one borrows depreciated money to do any thing, he has to borrow a greater nominal amount than he would of money that was not depreciated; and that it is on the number of nominal dollars, and not on their purchasing power, that the rate of interest is always calculated. The invariable rise in prices consequent on the depreciation of money (price as already explained being the purchasing power of any commodity or service expressed in money), furthermore stimulates borrowing for the purpose of speculation; and the more borrowers, the more compet.i.tion; and the more the compet.i.tion to obtain an article or service, the higher the price demanded for it.

Again, the currency of the island having been made artificially abundant, its exchangeable value was always uncertain; and capital, therefore, as it always does at such times, locked up its pockets, hesitated to take risks, and, if it consented to loan at all, demanded extra pay by reason of the increased risk or induced scarcity. [35]

After testing all these principles experimentally for a considerable time, the people on the island came to see that the possession of money was the consequence rather than the cause of wealth; and that, except under special circ.u.mstances and conditions, the rate of interest depends on the abundance or scarcity of that part of the capital of a community which does not consist of money; and that it can not be permanently lowered by any increase in the quant.i.ty of money. [36]

In this way, through the school of hard experience, the people on the island came gradually to understand that there were certain economic truths which had got to be accepted and lived up to in order to insure either individual or national prosperity. They came to understand that property is a physical actuality, the result of some form of labor; that capital is that portion of the results of production which can be reserved and made available for new and further production; that money is an instrumentality for facilitating the distribution and use of capital and the interchange of products and services; that production alone buys production; that when one buys goods with a paper representative or symbol of money, the goods are not paid for until the representative is subst.i.tuted by a value of some sort in labor, or money, or some other commodity; and, finally, that a country and its inhabitants increase in wealth or abundance by increasing their products, rather than by inordinately multiplying machinery for the exchange of products. They also saw that the promises to pay which they had been using and regarding as money were debts; and that debts, as well as all other forms of t.i.tle, are but shadows of the property they represent; and that, in endeavoring to all get rich by first creating debts, then calling the debts money, and the money wealth, they had been led, successively, into speculation, extravagance, idleness, and impoverishment; and, like the dog in the fable, which let go of the meat in crossing a stream for the sake of grasping its shadow, they had lost much of real wealth resulting from previous industry by trying to make the shadow of wealth supply the place of its substance.

Coming to gradually realize, also, that one of the first requisites for an increase of trade was that confidence should exist between the buyer and the seller, but that such confidence never would exist so long as the representatives of value, or other intermediate agencies made use of for facilitating exchanges, were of an uncertain, fluctuating character, they also came finally to the conclusion that there was no economy in using cheap money; or, in other words, that the loss and waste inevitably resulting from the use of poor tools (money being a tool) was many times in excess of the interest accruing from any increased cost of good tools. So reasoning, gold, or undoubted promises to pay gold, gradually came once more into use as money on the island.

There were some prophecies, and a good deal of apprehension, that there would be difficulty experienced in obtaining sufficient gold to serve as money or as a basis for currency, especially when it was remembered that the influence of all that had recently happened had been to encourage the export of all the gold that was owned or produced on the island. But as the goldsmiths and the jewelers never experienced any difficulty during the war with the cannibals, or afterward, in obtaining all the gold they wanted, no matter how scarce and valuable it was as compared with currency, and could have had a hundred times more than they actually used, if their customers had been willing to pay for it; so the merchants, traders, and people at large on the island, as soon as they became satisfied that it was economical to use gold, and determined to have it, experienced no difficulty in obtaining an ample supply.

One circ.u.mstance which, pending this result, tended to greatly relieve the popular apprehension on this score, was the reading in foreign newspapers that the people in certain comparatively poor countries--as Oregon, Arizona, Nevada, and Was.h.i.+ngton Territory--had no more difficulty in obtaining and retaining all the gold that they found it desirable to use for the purpose of money, than they had in obtaining and retaining all the wheelbarrows and steam-engines that they desired to use in conducting their business; and laughed when any body talked of depriving them of their gold money.

The first step having been thus taken in the right direction, a sequence of other proper acts occurred as naturally and with the same favorable results as in the celebrated case of the old woman and the kid; in which it will be remembered that as soon as the water began to quench the fire, the fire began to burn the stick, the stick began to beat the dog, the dog began to bite the kid, and, as a consequence of this sequence and its concluding act, the old woman got safely home with the kid, though at a period of the evening much later than was desirable or proper. And so, by a succession of events, prosperity slowly but surely came back to the island.

As for the Friends of Humanity, who had been the authors of so much financial and commercial disturbance and national misfortune, they soon ceased to command attention from any one, then became objects of laughter and derision, and finally pa.s.sed out of the remembrance of the people, who were now all too busy in restoring their fortunes to give a thought to bygone and mortifying experiences. Some became convinced of their errors, and made good citizens; but in the case of the majority, the belief that the calling of things of no intrinsic value by the name of money was equivalent to the creation of wealth, became chronic, and finally developed into a harmless insanity. On pleasant days they might often be seen on the corners of the streets gathering leaves and bits of sticks and straws, and telling the children that a.s.sembled about them that all that was necessary to make these worthless gatherings money was to simply have confidence that they were so. But this was asking for a simplicity of belief that was a little too much, even for the children.

It only remains to add that, as memorials of this eventful history, there is still exhibited in one of the public buildings on the island an exact model of the cave in which the venerable Robinson Crusoe dwelt, and, what is even more interesting, the identical chest which he brought from the s.h.i.+p, and which contained the pins, needles, knives, cloth, and scissors, and the three great bags of what was then useless, but now good and true, money. Numerous specimens of the "ideal money" may also be seen in the same room, together with a picture of the barber who papered his shop with it, and of the dog which the people paraded in the streets covered with a plaster of pitch and currency. [37]

NOTES

[1] That the inconveniences experienced by a community attempting to conduct its exchanges exclusively by pure and direct barter as here depicted, are not only not imaginary, but have their exact counterpart in the present every-day experiences of countries of great geographical area and population, is proved by the testimony of Barth, Burton, and other recent travelers in Eastern Africa. Thus Barth, for example, says (see "Travels," vol. i., p. 568; vol. iii., p. 203) that he was repeatedly prevented from buying what he absolutely needed--corn, rice, etc.--because he did not have, and could not get, what the people wanted in exchange; and, again (vol. ii., p. 51), he states that so great was the difficulty of getting things in some of the African towns which he visited, in consequence of the people having no general medium of exchange, that his servants would often return from their purchasing expeditions in a state of the utmost exhaustion.

[2] "The precious metals have many qualities which fit them for use as coin money. Their defects are their weight, their intrinsic value as commodities."--Social Science and National Economy, by R. E. Thompson, Philadelphia, 1875.

"The moment it is perceived that money is nothing but a token, it becomes evident that any token currently accepted in exchange of useful services and products of labor will perform the proper functions of money without regard to the material of which it is made; and that the less costly the material out of which money is made, the better for the community that uses it."--Money, Currency, and Banking, by Charles Moran, New York, 1875, p. 42.

[3] "To my mind, the great and immediate need of the day is the issuance of more legal-tender notes, in order to impair the confidence in them to an extent as to cause the owners of them to desire to exchange them for other kinds of property, or man's wants--not simply to loan out on short or long date paper, with fire-proof security, at low or high rates of interest, which can now be done to any extent required--but absolutely part with them for other kinds of property."--Views of Enoch Ensley, of Memphis, Tennessee, on the National Finances, Memphis, September, 1875.

[4] "In the midst of the public distress, one cla.s.s prospered greatly--the bankers; and, among the bankers, none could, in skill or in luck, bear a comparison with Charles Duncombe. He had been, not many years before, a goldsmith of very moderate wealth. He had probably, after the fas.h.i.+on of his craft, plied for customers under the arcades of the Royal Exchange, had saluted merchants with profound bows, and had begged to be allowed the honor of keeping their cash. But so dexterously did he now avail himself of the opportunities of profit which the general confusion of prices gave to a money-changer, that, at the moment when the trade of the kingdom was depressed to the lowest point, he laid down near ninety thousand pounds for the estate of Helmsley, in the North Riding of Yorks.h.i.+re."--Macaulay's History of England, State of the Currency in 1694-'95.

[5] "Beyond the sea, in foreign lands, it (the greenback) fortunately is not money; but, sir, when have we had such a long and unbroken career of prosperity in business as since we adopted this non-exportable currency?"--Speech of Hon. William D. Kelley, House of Representatives, 1870.

"I desire the dollar to be made of such material, for the purpose, that it shall never be exported or desirable to carry out of the country. Framing an American system of finance, I do not propose to adapt it to the wants of any other nation."--Speech of General B. F. Butler before the New York Board of Trade, October 14th, 1875.

[6] "Some years since, Mademoiselle Zelie, a singer of the Theatre Lyrique at Paris, made a professional tour round the world, and gave a concert in the Society Islands. In exchange for an air from 'Norma,' and a few other songs, she was to receive a third part of the receipts. When counted, her share was found to consist of three pigs, twenty-three turkeys, forty-four chickens, five thousand cocoa-nuts, besides considerable quant.i.ties of bananas, lemons, and oranges. At the Halle (market) in Paris, the prima donna remarks, in her lively letter printed by M. Walowski, this amount of live stock and vegetables might have brought four thousand francs, which would have been good remuneration for five songs. In the Society Islands, however, pieces of money were very scarce; and as mademoiselle could not consume any considerable portion of the receipts herself, it became necessary in the mean time to feed the pigs and poultry with the fruit."--Jevons's Money and Mechanism of Exchange.

[7] In 1658, it was ordered by the General Court of Ma.s.sachusetts that no man should pay taxes "in lank cattle."--Felt's Ma.s.sachusetts Currency.

[8] This incident is related by Burton, in his "Explorations of the Lake Regions of Central Africa" (1858-'59), as one within his knowledge of actual occurrence.

[9] In one of the mints there is exhibited as a curiosity a case in which this fact is demonstrated in the most striking manner. It contains some fifty or more very thin ribbons, or strips, of gold, half an inch wide by three inches in length, placed in a row, parallel to, but separated from each other by a slight interval. The first ribbon is composed of gold of the highest standard of purity; the second differs from the first to the extent of one per cent. of admixture with a baser metal; while the third contains two per cent., the fourth three per cent., and so on, until in the last ribbon, or strip, the amount of gold and alloy is equal. The color of the first ribbon is, in the highest sense of the term, golden or typical. The color of the second differs from the first by a shade, which shade in every successive ribbon changes and becomes more and more marked as the proportion of alloy entering into its composition increases: and so peculiar are these differences of color that it is possible for an individual unskilled in metallurgy, but having access to the standard, to make a comparatively accurate test of the purity of any article of gold in his possession by a simple comparison of color.

[10] In 1862 Mr. Eckfelt, then princ.i.p.al a.s.sayer at the mint in Philadelphia, communicated to the American Philosophical Society the result of some exceedingly curious examinations demonstrating the very wide distribution of gold. The city of Philadelphia, he stated, was underlaid by a bed of clay having an area of about ten square miles, with an average depth of about fifteen feet. Specimens of this clay--all natural deposits--taken from such localities as might furnish a fair a.s.say of the whole--the cellar of the market on Market Street, near Eleventh, and from a brick-yard in the suburbs of the city--all yielded, on careful a.n.a.lysis, small amounts of gold; the average amount indicated being seven-tenths of a grain--or about three cents'

worth--of gold for every cubit foot of clay. a.s.suming these data to be correct, the value of the gold, according to Mr. Eckfelt, which lies securely buried underneath the streets and houses of Philadelphia must therefore be equivalent to $128,000,000; or if we include all the clay contained in the corporate limits, the amount of gold contained in it must be equal to all that has yet been obtained from California and Australia.

"It is also apparent," says Mr. Eckfelt, "that every time a cart-load of clay is hauled out of a cellar in Philadelphia, enough gold goes with it to pay for the carting; and if the bricks which front our houses could have brought to their surface, in the form of gold-leaf, the amount of gold which they contain, we should have the glittering show of two square inches on every brick."

[11] On the Rhine, near Strasburg, a good able-bodied laborer can earn on an average one franc seventy-five centimes per day, was.h.i.+ng gold from the sands of the river; but, as under most circ.u.mstances he can earn ten sous more by working in the fields on the banks of the river, and without so much risk of getting rheumatism, gold-was.h.i.+ng on the Rhine is not often adopted as a regular employment.

[12] "And when the subst.i.tution is made" (of a silver for a paper fractional currency), "what will be the consequence? The metal currency will have to be considerably debased, or else every old woman in the country will fill her stockings with it and bury it. It will be h.o.a.rded, sir; h.o.a.rded to the extent of removing millions from the currency of the country." The general paused, glared at a village wrapped in rain, by which we were rattling, chewed his cigar vigorously, and lapsed into silence.--A Newspaper Reporter's Interview with General Butler, September, 1875.

[13] Gold in its crude state, and uncoined, was until recently in use as money in some parts of California, Mexico, and on the West Coast of Africa.

[14] Historically, bills of exchange probably originated with the Jews of the Middle Ages, who, ever liable to persecution, adopted a system of drafts, or written orders, upon one another, which each agreed to honor and pay to the person named in the draft.

[15] It was in this manner that the first bank of which we have any record originated in 1171, namely, the Bank of the Republic of Venice. Venice in that year was at war and needed money. The Council of Ten, or the Government, called upon the merchants to bring in their gold or coin into the public treasury, and gave credit on the books of the state for the amounts so deposited; which credits carried interest (always promptly paid) at the rate of four per cent. per annum. Soon after the establishment of this bank one of the depositors died; and it becoming necessary to distribute his estate among five children, his bank-credit was divided into five portions and transferred to five new owners. A system of transferring bank-credits was thus introduced, and proved so useful that in a brief time the merchants adopted it very generally as a means of paying balances in all great business transactions. The banks of Amsterdam and of Hamburg were also subsequently established on substantially the same basis, and are doing business to-day successfully. The Bank of Venice did business for five hundred years; during which period the state was prosperous, and there were few failures among the mercantile cla.s.ses.

[16] If to any it may seem puerile and unnecessary to enter into such explanations, it may be well to remind them that one of the schemes for a new currency, which has of late found some earnest advocates in the United States, is that of Josiah Warren, of Ohio, who proposed that currency "should be issued by those men, women, and children who perform useful service"--i. e., grow corn, mine coal, catch cod-fish, pick up chestnuts and the like--"but by n.o.body else;" such results of service being deposited in safe receptacles, and having receipts of deposit issued against them to serve as "equitable money." A further axiom of Mr. Warren was, "that the most disagreeable labor"

(not the most useful) "is ent.i.tled to the highest compensation;" and, therefore, inferentially ent.i.tled to issue the most money. A specimen of this equitable money before the writer reads as follows: