place were rather reciprocal presents than mercantile exchanges. Such is actually the case among modern savages. “It is instructive to see trade in its lowest form among such tribes as the Australians. The tough greenstone valuable for making hatchets is carried hundreds of miles by natives, who receive from other tribes in return the prized products of their districts, such as red ochre to paint their bodies with; they have even got so far as to let peaceful traders pass unharmed through tribes at war, so that trains of youths might be met, each lad with a slab of sandstone on his head to be carried to his distant home and shaped into a seed-crusher. When strangers visit a tribe they are received at a friendly gathering or corrobboree, and presents are given on both sides. No doubt there is a general sense that the gifts are to be fair exchanges, and if either side is not satisfied there will be grumbling and quarrelling; but in this roughest kind of barter we do not yet find that clear notion of a unit of value which is the great step in trading.” This vivid description of E. B. Tylor’s enables us to realize the way in which money came into existence. When any commodity becomes an object of desire, not merely from its use to the persons desiring it, but from their wanting it as being readily exchangeable for other things, then that article may be regarded as rudimentary money. Thus the greenstone and ochre are on their way to being promoted to the position of currency, and the idea of a “unit of value” is all that is needed to complete the invention. “This higher stage is found among the Indians of British Columbia, whose strings of haiqua-shells worn as ornamental borders to their dresses serve them also as currency to trade with—a string of ordinary quality being reckoned as worth one beaver’s skin.” Such shells are in reality money, inasmuch as they discharge its functions.
On a review of existing savage tribes and ancient races of more
or less civilization we are surprised at the great variety of objects
which have been used to supply the need of a circulating medium.
Skins, for instance, seem to be one of the earliest forms of money.
They have been found among the Indians of Alaska performing
this service, while accounts of leather money seem to show that
their use was formerly more general. As the hunting stage gives
place to the pastoral, and animals become domesticated, the animal
itself, instead of its skin, becomes the principal form of currency.
There is a great mass of evidence to show that, in the most distant
regions and at very different times, cattle formed a currency for
pastoral and early agricultural nations. Alike among existing
barbarous tribes, and in the survivals discovered among classical
nations, sheep and oxen both appear as units of value. Thus we
find that at Rome, and through the Italian tribes generally, “oxen
and sheep formed the oldest medium of exchange, ten sheep being
reckoned equivalent to one ox. The recognition of these objects as
universal legal representatives of value, or, in other words, as money,
may be traced back to the epoch of a purely pastoral economy.”
The Icelandic law bears witness to a similar state of things; while
the various fines in the different Teutonic codes are estimated in
cattle. The Latin word pecunia (pecus) is an evidence of the earliest
Roman money being composed of cattle. The English fee and the
famous term feudal, according to its most probable etymology, are
derived from the same root. In a well-known passage of the Iliad
(vi. 235–6) the value of two different sets of armour is estimated in
terms of oxen. The Irish law tracts bear evidence as to the use of
cattle as one of the measures of value in early Irish civilization.
Similarly, oxen forom the principal wealth and the circulating medium
among the Zulus and Kaffirs. On the testimony of an eye-witness
we are assured that, “as cattle constitute the sole wealth of the
people, so they are their only medium of such transactions as involve
exchange, payment or reward.” So also we find that cattle-rents
are paid by the pastoral Indian tribes to the United States government.
From the prominence of slavery in early societies it is
reasonable to suppose that slaves would be adopted as a medium
of exchange, and one of the measures of value in the Irish law tracts,
cumhal, is said to have originally meant a female slave. They are
at present applied to this purpose in Central Africa, and also in
New Guinea. On passing to the agricultural stage a greater number
of objects are found capable of being applied to currency purposes.
Among these are corn—used even at present in Norway—maize,
olive oil, coco-nuts and tea. The most remarkable instance of an
agricultural product being used as currency is to be found in the
case of tobacco, which was adopted as legal tender by the English
colonists in North America. Another class of articles used for money
consists of ornaments, which among all uncivilized tribes serve this
purpose. The haiqua-shells mentioned before are an instance,
cowries in India, whales' teeth among the Fijians, red feathers
among some South Sea Island tribes, and finally, any attractive kinds
of stone which can be easily worked. Mineral products, so far as
they do not come under the preceding head, furnish another class.
Thus salt was used in Abyssinia and Mexico; while the metals—a
phenomenon which will require a more careful examination—have
succeeded in finally driving all their inferior competitors out of the
field, and have become the sole substances for money.
4. The Metals as Money. Reasons for their Adoption. Superiority of Silver and Gold.—The employment of metals as money material can be traced far back in the history of civilization; but as it is impossible to determine the exact order of their appearance in this capacity, it will be convenient to take them in the order of their value, beginning with the lowest. Iron—to judge from the statement of Aristotle—was widely used as currency. One remarkable instance is the Spartan money, which was clearly a survival of a form that had died out among the other Greek states; though it has often been attributed to ascetic policy. In conjunction with copper, iron formed one of the constituents of early Chinese currency, and at a later time was used as a subsidiary coinage in Japan. Iron spikes are used as money in Central Africa, while Adam Smith notes the employment of nails for the same purpose in Scotland. Lead has served as money, e.g. in Burma. The use of copper as money has been more extensive than is the case in respect to the metals just mentioned. It, as stated, was used in China along with iron—an early instance of bimetallism—and it figured in the first Hebrew coins. It was the sole Roman coinage down to 269 B.C. and it has lingered on to a comparatively recent date in the backward European currencies. It even survives as a part of the token coinage of the present. Tin has not been a favourite material for money; the richness of the Cornish mines accounts for its use by some British kings. Silver holds a more prominent place than any of the preceding metals. Down to the close of the 18th century it was the chief form of money, and often looked on as forming the necessary standard substance. It was the principal Greek money material, and was introduced at Rome in 269 B.C. The currencies of medieval Europe had silver as their leading constituent; while down almost to the present day Eastern countries seemed to prefer silver to gold.
The pre-eminence of gold as money is now beyond dispute; there, is, however, some difficulty in discovering its earliest employment. It is, perhaps, to be found in “the pictures of the ancient Egyptians weighing in scales heaps of rings of gold and silver.” According to W. Ridgeway’s ingenious theory gold comes into use as a currency in due equation to the older cattle-unit, the ox. It was certainly employed by the great Eastern monarchs; its further development will be considered later on. Metals of modern discovery—such as nickel and platinum—are only used by the fancy of a few governments, though the former makes a good token coinage.
The preceding examination of the varied materials of currency, metallic and non-metallic, suggests some conclusions respecting the course of monetary evolution, viz.: (1) that the metals tend to supersede all other forms of money among progressive communities; and (2) that the more valuable metals displace the less valuable ones. The explanation of these movements is found in the qualities that are specially desirable in the articles used for money. There has been a long process of selection and elimination in the course of monetary history.
First, it is plain that nothing can serve as money which has not the attributes of wealth; i.e. unless it is useful, transferable and limited in supply. As these conditions are essential to the existence of value, the instrument for measuring and transferring values must possess them. A second requisite of great effect is the amount of value in proportion to weight or mass. High value in small bulk gives the quality of portability, want of which has been a fatal obstacle to the continued use of many early forms of money. Skins, corn and tobacco were defective in this quality, and so were iron and copper. Sheep and oxen, though technically described as “self-moving,” are expensive to transport from place to place. That the material of money shall be the same throughout, so that one unit shall be equal in value to another, is a further desideratum, which is as decidedly lacking in cattle-currency as it is prominent in the metals. It is, further, desirable that the substance used as money shall be
