David Ames Wells

“ Every body felt poor and swindled. Every body who thought he had money in savings-banks woke up all at once to the realization that his money was nothing but a lot of old shells. Every body had his bags, his tills, and his money-boxes filled with shells, which he had taken in exchange for commodities which had cost him valuable time and labor. ”

“ Nevertheless, as an instrumentality for transferring commodities used for money, and avoiding the loss and waste unavoidable in handling and transporting such commodities, the currency thus devised was a great invention, and being always represented by, or, as we may express it, covered with, the commodity—gold—which, of all things, fluctuates least in value, it perfectly answered the purpose of money, without actually being so. ”

“ But no one on the island ever for a moment imagined that there was any way to honestly replace the money they had lost, except by acquiring through industry and economy a new store of useful commodities with which to buy money; and no one who ever had any thing to sell which others in the community wanted, and were able to give in return a fair equivalent, ever found himself in want of money or a market; while, on the other hand, no one who had nothing to sell which the community wanted or were able to pay for ever succeeded in obtaining either money or a market. ”

“ And by this time, also, the money which Robinson Crusoe found in the chest, and which, when it first came into his possession, had neither utility, value, nor use as a standard, or measure of value, had gradually acquired all these several attributes: utility, when the material of which it was composed became capable of satisfying some human desire for it, as an ornament, as a symbol of worship, or for some mechanical or chemical purpose; value (the sole result of labor) , when it became an object of or equivalent in exchange, or acquired a power of purchasing other things ”

“ All exchanges must, however, in the first instance, have been made directly, or, as we term it, by barter; so much of one commodity or service being given for so much of some other commodity or service—corn for cloth, furs and skins for knives or tobacco, so much labor in building a house for so much skill in constructing a canoe. But in all this method of exchanging, which, while it is the most ancient, is also one which still extensively prevails in even the most civilized societies, there was no place for the use or intervention of money ”

“ There was a very wise man on the island who objected to the use of gold as money, for the reason that he felt afraid that the poor old women who wanted to feel certain of having always something of reliable value in their possession would fill their old stockings with it and hoard it.4 But he was soon shut up by some one asking him, why, if the old women wanted to keep something by them perfectly secure against a rainy day, and slept better nights because they knew they had it, they shouldn’t be allowed that privilege? ”

“ The promises to pay for the commodities destroyed had all been preserved. They were regarded by almost every body as money; and if money, then, of course, as every body knew, they were wealth, and wealth so great and superabundant that the one thing especially necessary to do was to devise plans for using it. Every body, therefore, devised plans; those who had no money more especially devising plans for those who had. ”

“ The introduction and use of coined money at once gave an impetus to business, and made the people richer, because it saved time and labor in making exchanges, and relieved every man from the trouble and expense of buying and carrying round with him scales and other tests. The only persons dissatisfied were the scale-makers, who found their business almost destroyed, and they petitioned the authorities to have their interests protected by the enactment of a law compelling all persons to weigh their coins with scales before exchanging, as formerly they did their gold. ”

“ For in the absence of all law defining what money should be, and regulating exchanges, the adoption of any article to serve as money which represented little or no effort for its production or accumulation would enable the shrewd, the idle, or unscrupulous, easily, and without fear of punishment or restraint, to take from the rest of the community products which represented the expenditure of time and labor, without giving in return any equivalent. ”

“ Was it not evident that the value of every man’s possessions, measured in cowry money, had greatly increased—and what could be more natural than that the shrewd adventurers who had been the authors of these golden days should be highly honored, invited to speak before cowry clubs in all parts of the island, and be even talked of for the chief offices, which still continued to be filled by Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday? ”

“ If a man was a Pagan, he felt that in no way could he so honor and symbolize the god he worshiped as to fashion in gold the image of that which he imagined; if he was a Christian, he chose gold for the fabrication of his symbolic vessels and ornaments, as, of all material things, the one which was most typical of purity, beauty, durability, and worth. ”

“ But if, through ignorance or impecuniosity, any should feel obliged to continue to contribute buttons in the place of money, I would request that they do not stamp down or break off the eyes; inasmuch, as while by so doing they utterly destroy the utility of these commodities as buttons, and do not increase their desirability as money, they also utterly fail to deceive the heathen; who, although ignorant of the Gospel, and not using buttons for any purpose, are nevertheless, as a general thing, good judges of currency. ”

“ The general name given to the commodities or articles which the people of different countries universally accept in exchange, as the equivalent for all other commodities or services, and as the measure of values, is money. ”

“ But as the currency involved in so much of the transaction as occurred after the cloth was made into clothing was neither gold nor any thing which represented gold, nor any other valuable commodity, and therefore, like a ship without a rudder, or a locomotive without a track, was sure to be unreliable as an exchanging instrumentality, the seller knew to a certainty that what he was to receive in payment of his goods, three, six, or nine months afterward, would not have the same value or purchasing power that it had on the day the debt was contracted. It might be greater, it might be less ”

“ But payment of debts is something to which many people are constitutionally opposed; and this scheme accordingly found many opponents, who alleged that, if it were carried out, it would deprive them of money, and consequently of instrumentalities for making their exchanges; while the real trouble with many of this class of people was, that they hadn’t any thing useful, the products of their own industry, to exchange, and therefore could get no money, unless they went to work, or, what was preferable, acquired it from somebody without consideration. ”

“ The real difference was, that their former currency, composed of tickets or certificates given in exchange for a deposit of actual gold, represented an actual accumulation of an equivalent of every thing desirable which labor could produce all the world over; while, on the other hand, the promises to pay which the island authorities issued in ex- change for the commodities loaned them by the people, and subsequently used up in fighting the cannibals, represented an actual destruction of almost every thing useful and desirable in place of accumulation. ”

“ We buy regularly large quantities of a foreign product—let us suppose, for illustration, cloth, for the large manufacturers and dealers in ready-made clothing. We buy for gold, and we sell for gold, and do not allow the currency or its fluctuations to enter in any way into these transactions. But how is it with my customers? I allow them some credit; and the amount involved being often very large, I, of course, must know something of the way in which they manage their business. They transform the cloth, purchased with gold, into clothing ”

“ Every man doubtless adds all that competition will permit; and every circumstance likely to affect the prospective price of gold is carefully considered. Five per cent., in my opinion, on a credit of three months would be the average minimum; and for a longer time, a larger percentage. If competition does not allow any insurance percentage to be added, there is a liability to a loss of capital, which, in the long run, may be most disastrous—a circumstance that may explain the wreck of many firms, whose managers, on the old-fashioned basis of doing business, would have been successful. ”

“ 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;” ”

“ Money became as plentiful as in the modern days of paper currency, and, to use a popular phrase, ‘a wonderful impulse was given to public prosperity.’”
Unfortunately for the success of Governor Kieft’s scheme, the Yankees on Connecticut River soon found that they could make wampum in any quantity, with little labor and cost, out of oyster-shells, and accordingly made haste to supply all the wampum that the wants of trade in New Amsterdam required; buying with it every thing that was offered, and paying the worthy Dutchmen their own price. ”

“ But when all these different persons, each desirous of exchanging his special products or services, had been found, and had come together, a new perplexity at once made its appearance, and one so embarrassing as to cause each man seriously to consider whether it were not better to return home and endeavor to produce every thing for himself, rather than attempt to exchange any thing. ”

“ But the more money that was issued, the more was needed to supply the wants of trade, until at last it took a four-horse wagon-load of cowries to buy a bushel of wheat. Then the bubble burst. Stock-companies all failed. Trade became utterly stagnant. The man whom Robinson Crusoe had made secretary of the island treasury thought he could help matters by issuing a few more cowries, but it was no use. Some very wise persons were certain that every thing would be all right again if people would only have confidence ”

“ So that the people who, at the outset, abandoned their various occupations of raising wheat, making coats, building boats, baking bread, and constructing stone walls and chimneys, and betook themselves to digging gold, soon learned that, as a general rule, the results of a day’s labor thus employed purchased no more of useful or desirable commodities—meat, drink, clothes, etc.—than the results of a similar amount of labor exerted in the most ordinary occupations ”

“ The people of the island must have been unusually stupid if they did not from the outset, therefore, clearly see that nothing can be reliable and good money under all circumstances which does not of itself possess the full amount of the value which it professes on its face to possess. ”

“ In short, like sensible men, the islanders concluded that as long as they maintained in common use a real, good, and true money, which carried on its face evidence (easily read and known of all men) of its value or purchasing power, there was little use of cumbering up the statute-book with any thing about legal tender. They would leave that to other people wiser than they were, who desired [54] to use money that would not circulate, except it had some artificial power or agency back of it to make it go. ”

“ Moreover, although the philosophers did not exactly say so, the inference was also legitimate, that in a community using merely “token” or “remembrance” money, the surest way to get rich would be to get in debt, and the best way of carrying on an enlightened system of trade and commerce, to exchange commodities, the results of time and labor, for evidences of debt without interest. ”

“ The jobbers and the retailers, to whom the wholesale dealers and manufacturers sell, are not so likely to take currency insurance into consideration in fixing their selling prices; but to whatever amount the cost price of their goods has been enhanced by the necessity of insurance against currency fluctuations, on that same amount they estimate and add for interest and profits; the total enhancement of prices falling ultimately on the consumer, who, of necessity, can rarely know the elements of the cost of the article he purchases. ”

“ But this latter term was conceded to be but a mere fiction of speech and a bad use of language; for every intelligent person at once saw that a promise to deliver a commodity, or an acknowledgment of the receipt of, or a title to, a thing, could not possibly be the commodity or the thing itself, any more than a shadow could be the substance, or the picture of a horse a horse, or the smell of a good dinner the same as the dinner itself. ”

“ The Government was active and energetic, but to carry on the war a vast expenditure of commodities was necessary; and as the Government of the island—in common with all other governments—never had, or could have, any commodities or money to buy commodities with, other than what it obtained through loans and taxes, the people, one and all, were called upon to help. ”

“ A shadow is not a substance.
The value of most commodities, even in a perfect condition, furthermore differs so much by reasons of mere locality, that there could be no possible uniformity in the value of the receipt for the deposit of one and the same article, issued by banks in different places, to serve as currency; the value or purchasing power of a ton of coal, or a fat ox, being one thing at the mouth of a coal-mine or on a prairie stock-farm, and [59] quite a different thing ten, twenty, or a hundred miles distant. ”

“ They came to understand that property is a [114] 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 ”

“ If the news came the next day that the black troops, although they had fought nobly, had been driven back, and that there was some prospect that every body, sooner or later, would be cooked and eaten, then the same number of bluebacks bought only half the quantity of wheat. Consequently, every body, in selling commodities representing expenditure of time and labor, added to the price of the same, in order to insure himself against the fluctuations of the purchasing power of the currency he received ”