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Show TRYIJTG TO DETHRONE GOLD. A writer in the London Monetary Gazelle gives a novel idea of the functions func-tions and effects of gold as a standard of value and a symbol of money, irj that country especially, where goid is supposed to underlie all commercial transactions. "Every one who draws & bill or issues a note,'1 says Professor Jevoiis, ' 'acts unconsciously as a 'bear' on the gold market." As our readers know, a "bear" transaction is tho sale of something which the seller hag not in his possession at the time of making his contract. "A promise to pay in gold at a given and future day, is undoubtedly at undertaking under-taking to deliver what the contractor baa not in bis possession, and the risk he runs iB that he may not be able to supply himself with the gold so as to bo able to fulfil his contract." The total amount of gold coin in circulation circula-tion in Great Britain does not probably exceed 120,000,000, but this amount is scarcely equal to the sum thai passes through the Loudon bankers' clearing house in a siugle week. The idea that a metallic currency underlies under-lies these totals of payment is a delusive fiction. The gold does not really exist. It ib at all times scarce, and the quantity hitherto wrested from mother earth is so small as totally to unfit gold for the functions it is supposed to fill. The merchant who gives a promise pro-mise to pay 1,000 in six months expects to be able in some way to arrange his differences aud pay ofl this liability without being called upon for Hia trnU Tlt ol-rnnM mnr-, ha become scares before the day of payment pay-ment arrives, shouid panic be prevalent preva-lent at the critical juncture, the artificial arti-ficial system of credit will suddenly break down, and gold, as the essence ot the contract, will be demanded, when gold probably cannot be had at any price. Nor will the conversion of merchandise into gold be an easy matter under the circumstances. The debtor must pay in gold, and he can not get the gold. In this sense, the writer urges, that making gold the basis of England's financial economy and commerce necessarily readers the credit transactions of trade speculative specula-tive the debtor class being in variably-gold variably-gold "bears." Any sudden or extra-Ordinary extra-Ordinary demand for gold is certain to produce a Btate of panic and disaster. dis-aster. It may be that this is too broad a view ot the case, but it is remarkable re-markable that England and this country should simultaneously have had their attention directed to an investigation into the character and functions of money a subject which the accepted political economists bad Bettled to their satisfaction more than half a century ago. The doubts which hav been thrown upon gold as the beat currency and the most just and reliable Btaudiird. o! trade seem to increase and find new and able advocates. Can there be nothing settled in scionco, art or morals which depends upon human invention? Id other worda, cn man never attain to &leolote truth? |