Franc (currency)

“ Owing to the accidents of historical development, certain points of connexion existed between the leading European systems. Thus, the franc being regarded as a unit, the Austrian florin was as 2·47, the American gold dollar as 5·18, and the English pound as 25·22. Very slight changes would bring these coins into a series of 1 : 2 : 5 : 25, and it was proposed by the congress of 1863 that, when thus modified, they should have international currency in all countries where any of the four units prevailed. All outside nations were recommended to select whichever of these units they preferred. ”

“ Liards are to be held worth 7 to the sou.
34.—April 15, 1829. The order of 6th July, 1816, repealed so far as regards the old French crowns of 6 francs.
35.—April 27th, 1829. Considering that French money has been from time immemorial, and still is, legal currency in this island, orders that the new French coinage shall be in use here—one franc to be worth 10 Guernsey pennies.
36.—May 1, 1848. The French money not always being available in sufficient quantity, English gold and silver coins and Bank of England notes are to be used concurrently with French money. ”

“ Pierre is a profitable pursuit provided one's wallet is filled with American coin or bank-notes. Though articles are priced in francs and centimes, the currency of the United States, Canada, Newfoundland, England and Switzerland is accepted, and change is made in any one or all of these. Strangely, very little French money is in circulation, and a bonus of two per cent, is demanded on French gold wherewith to pay customs fees. An American dollar, silver or paper, is worth 108 sous. ”

“ But this wise measure gave the French people that most inestimable of all blessings in a political and monetary crisis—a currency which, without being redundant, is sufficient, and, being not convertible into the precious metals, neither augments the strain on them, nor is liable to be swept away by foreign export. ”

“ Why is there so little coin in England, in proportion to what there is in France? Does any man imagine that this is a mark of poverty? By no means. Let the state proscribe the currency of paper money, the coin will quickly return; because then it will be demanded. But at present the paper supplies its place, and so it goes abroad in order to gain more; whereas in France it remains at home, and produces nothing. The wealth of a nation can no more be estimated by the quantity of its coin, than the wealth of private people by the weight of their purse. ”

“ The washerwomen of Paris, finding soap so dear that they could hardly purchase it, insisted that all the merchants who were endeavoring to save something of their little property by refusing to sell their goods for the wretched currency with which France was flooded, should be punished with death; the women of the markets and the hangers-on of the Jacobin Club called loudly for a law "to equalize the value of paper money and silver coin." ”

“ Notwithstanding such limitations, however, it still remains true that the monetary history of the modern world dates from the thirteenth and not the seventh century, and from the little commercial states of Italy rather than from Byzantium. Previous to the minting of the gold florin of Florence there is no trace of any independent minting of gold coins on a commercial scale by any state of mediæval central Europe. The currency system of England, for instance, from the time of the Saxons to the days of Henry III. was based entirely on silver. ”

“ Public chests full—payments made to the day—orders on the treasury the best bills of exchange—France alone, of all Europe, having no paper money; meaning no government paper money, for there were bank notes of five hundred francs, and one thousand francs. A government revenue of one hundred and sixty millions of dollars was paid in gold and silver; a hard money currency, of five hundred and fifty millions of dollars, saturated all parts of France with specie, and made gold and silver the every day currency of every man, woman and child, in the empire. ”

“ But no sooner does coin leave the mint, than it immediately finds itself on the high-road to the melting pot. During their currency, coins wear away, some more, others less. Name and substance, nominal weight and real weight, begin their process of separation. Coins of the same denomination become different in value, because they are different in weight. The weight of gold fixed upon as the standard of prices, deviates from the weight that serves as the circulating medium, and the latter thereby ceases any longer to be a real equivalent of the commodities whose prices it realises. ”

“ When the United Provinces of the Netherlands and Belgium were united under a single sceptre, both countries had an immense variety of coins, for formerly nearly every province claimed a right of coining money. To meet the desire for a simple and single system, a monetary law was passed in 1816 under King William I. Its object was to arrive at a currency having the old florin, called the florin of 200as, as the unit. But at the same time a gold piece of 10 florins was allowed. The florin contained 9.63 grms. of silver and the 10-florin piece 6.056 grms. of gold. ”

“ If the currency system of England had been of silver alone, a single enactment lessening the content of the unit coin, or crying up its denomination, would have stopped any outflow caused by under-valuation as compared with foreign money value. ”

“ On this occasion I addressed a letter to a noble Lord, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, suggesting what appeared to me the proper remedy for this evil. I proposed that, with a view to the general [Pg 234] reform of the coins of the realm, all the deficient gold coins should in the first place be called in and recoined, and that in future the currency of the gold coin should be regulated by weight as well as by tale, and that the several pieces should not be legal tender if diminished below a certain weight. ”

“ Having changed our guineas for french money, and as in future, when money is mentioned, it will be in the currency of the country, it perhaps may not be unacceptable to subjoin a table of the old, and new, and republican coins. ”

“ On the 31st July 1619 proclamation was issued for a new coinage. The gold angel was reduced in weight from 71 1⁄9 grs. to 64 11⁄15, being equivalent to an increase of an eleventh in its denominational value: and in January 1620, following the convictions of the merchants referred to, the Council busily debated "the erecting an exchange for monies, to prevent the export of silver by the goldsmiths who have been the offenders."
All these steps were taken too late, and the currency crisis which shook Germany ran its full course, too, in England. ”

“ When the gold or silver has all gone from circulation, and an equal quantity of paper has taken its place, suppose that a still further issue is superadded. The same series of phenomena recommences: prices rise, among the rest the prices of gold and silver articles, and it becomes an object as before to procure coin in order to convert it into bullion. There is no longer any coin in circulation; but if the paper currency is convertible, coin may still be obtained from the issuers, in exchange for notes. ”

“ Just as the exchange value of commodities is crystallized by their process of exchange into gold money, so is gold money sublimated in its currency into its own symbol first in the form of worn coin, then in the form of subsidiary metal currency, and finally in the form of a worthless token, paper, mere sign of value. ”

“ Truly gold is a product of the country, and imports should be paid with surplus produce; but while the credit of the currency, and thus credit generally, is based on gold, that metal cannot be a surplus product, be the aggregate supply what it may. What the people desire of money is not redemption, but constancy of value. Government has declared that the dollar shall be the legal means of payment. ”

“ For international payments, so far as specie is concerned, France and the United States depend ultimately on the international medium of exchange, which is gold. In the last resort, it is their gold which, acting through the foreign exchanges, maintains the whole mass of their currency at its nominal value for internal purposes. ”

“ Apart altogether from the arbitrary debasement of the coin, as, e.g., in France—apart even from changes of the ratio enacted with the mere crafty design of inducing a flow of gold, the monetary system of the time was so rough, so unscientific; the tariffing of the coins of different nations against each other was so inexact, so much a matter of rule-of-thumb, of hasty average, that it was simply impossible to issue such general tables of equivalents of coins and such a ratio as would have given stability to the various coinages of Europe. ”

“ The extreme diversity of the coins, and the perpetual changing of the composition or alloy, make it almost impossible to estimate the fluctuations in the value of money in relation to goods, or gold in relation to silver. Apart from the international struggle for the precious metals, France was torn and ruined by the English invasions, and debasement after debasement of the coinage was resorted to as a means of raising money to continue the struggle. ”

“ I call to witness the vast sums that have been coined in England since the free coinage was set up. What is become of it all? Nobody believes it to be in the nation, and it cannot well be all transported, the penalties for so doing being so great. The case is plain—the melting-pot devours it all; and I know no intelligent man who doubts but the new money goes this way. Silver and gold, like other commodities, have their ebbings and flowings; upon the arrival of quantities from Spain, the Mint commonly gives the best price, i.e. coined silver for uncoined silver, weight for weight. ”

“ As the result of deliberation of the Privy Council, assisted by the Commissioners of Trade and officers of the Mint, who all attributed the export to the higher price of gold abroad, it was determined to raise the price of the gold coins to or near the value which they had on the Continent at the moment. Accordingly, by proclamation of the 26th August 1661, the value of the gold unite was raised from 22s. to 23s. 6d., and other gold coins in proportion, the silver currency being left unaltered. ”

“ This notice of Oriental coins may conclude with suggestive reference to the “Cufic coins,” of which there are some valuable specimens. The first is the silver dirhem of Walid, the eccentric caliph of Damascus, A.D. 713. There is also in case XV. a coin of the reign of Haroun Alraschid.
French Coinage.
The French have the credit of making the greatest improvements in modern coinage. The French coins are a history of that nation, from the small coin issued in the reign of Louis “the Meek” to the last currency of the republic of France, spanning a period of one thousand years. ”

“ In thirty-five years the amount of our metallic reserves has increased almost threefold. And it is worthy of note that while the amount of circulation increases together with that of discounts, loans, and current accounts, the fact is nevertheless [Pg 492] established that the bank note tends to be more and more exclusively represented by cash holdings. The silver holdings are continually diminishing, while the total holdings have increased. Indeed, the Bank of France avails itself of every opportunity to relieve its coffers of this depreciated currency. ”

“ Carrying cash meant carrying coins. At any rate, not one of these travellers mentions using the bank-notes of the day, the 'segni reppresentativi' just introduced by the Italian bankers, nor even the ancient semi-currency of jewels, unless one includes Henri III, who, when escaping from the throne of Poland to that of France, carried off three hundred thousand crowns' worth. Carrying coins for future use meant, in the ordinary way, sewing them up in one's clothes. ”

“ In 1294 the scarcity of silver coinage was so great that a proclamation was put forth ordering silver to be brought to the Mint, and forbidding the export of the metals. In consequence of the futility of this ordinance, a further proclamation was issued in 1309, forbidding the circulation in France of English silver sterlings and gold florins of Florence, and crying down the exchange denomination of all other foreign coins. ”

“ Although an inconvertible paper currency has no intrinsic value, it can (in accordance with the quantity theory of money) be maintained at a fairly stable ratio to gold or commodities by an honest government if the total issue is fixed, or kept between reasonable maximum and minimum limits. ”

“ In fact, until the establishment of constitutional government the French people had to depend on popular violence to procure any temporary reform in their currency. Since the Revolution the course of development has been essentially orderly and regular. All through the time of the ancien régime silver was the principal money and the standard, as the use of the word “argent” as a synonym for money shows. Just as England got a gold currency by overvaluing gold, so did France get a silver one by overvaluing silver. ”

“ For states of transition are always states of suffering and, were there two or three hundred millions of silver in the hands of the people to-day, the statesman well might hesitate to raise the standard of the old dollar, making it equivalent to the gold one. The load of silver which France is carrying interferes seriously with her efforts to resume on her paper currency, and yet she very properly hesitates to enter upon an experience similar to that which Germany has recently had ”