Gold and the Gold Standard
Gold and the Gold Standard
Chapter I: The Place of Gold in the Money of Ancient and Medieval Times
The Place of Gold in the Money of Ancient and Medieval Times
Speak of the moderns without contempt and of the ancients without idolatry; judge them all by their merits and not by their age.—LORD CHESTERFIELD, 1748.
Chapter II: Two Thousand Years of Gold Money in England
Two Thousand Years of Gold Money in England
The English always manage to muddle through.—AUTHOR UNKNOWN, 1885.
England has had more experience with gold as standard money than has any other nation in the world, as well as a longer experience with gold monometallism. This chapter will explore briefly that experience down to 1821, when England’s monometallic gold standard came fully into operation.
Chapter III: Gold Money and the Gold Standard in the United States Prior to the First World War
Gold Money and the Gold Standard in the United States Prior to the First World War
American life storms about us daily and is slow to find a tongue.—RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Chapter IV: The Breakdown of the International Gold Standard—Its Recovery and Relapse
The Breakdown of the International Gold Standard—Its Recovery and Relapse
C’est la guerre.—Anonymous,
Chapter V: Characteristics of the Gold Standard
Characteristics of the Gold Standard
Gold presents . . . a combination of useful and striking properties quite without parallel among known substances.—W. STANLEY JEVONS, 1875.
This chapter will attempt to explain briefly the outstanding characteristics of the genus gold standard and the following chapter will describe its three principal species.
Chapter VI: Varieties of the Gold Standard
Varieties of the Gold Standard
It takes all sorts to make a world.—ENGLISH PROVERB, 1620.
Chapter VII: The Balance Sheet of the Gold Standard—Its Merits and Defects
The Balance Sheet of the Gold Standard—Its Merits and Defects
Gold is tried with a touchstone, and men by gold._CHILON, 560 B.C.
Up to this point our study of gold money and the gold standard has been concerned chiefly with history and fundamental principles. We have been looking at the past. Let us now turn to the future, and consider the principal merits and defects of the gold standard as a monetary standard for the postwar world—a very mundane sort of world, not Utopia.
Chapter VIII: The Monetary Standard of the Future
The Monetary Standard of the Future
The future is purchased by the present.—SAMUEL JOHNSON.
Concerning the world’s monetary standard of the future the logical conclusion to be drawn from the preceding discussion may well be summarized in the following excerpt from the 1931 report of the Macmillan Committee, which consisted of 14 eminent British financiers and economists:
Index
A
America, discovery of gold in, early nineteenth century, 74-76
middle of nineteenth century, 77-80
Anderson, B. M., 202
Angel, gold coin of early England, 33
Aristophanes, principle of Gresham’s law mentioned by, 9
Arndt, E. H. D., 152
Arts, gold in, 147-148
As, weights and varieties of, in early Roman times, 11-15
As libralis, 11-13
