"It is a kind of a Bill of Exchange, or Order payable at the will of the bearer.

"Instead of taking his share in kind of all matters of subsistence, and all raw produce annually growing, the sovereign demands it in Money, the effective Title, the Order, the Bill of Exchange."

So Smith says: - "A guinea may be considered as a Bill for a certain quantity of necessaries and conveniences upon all the tradesmen in the neighbourhood."

So Henry Thornton says : - "Money of every kind is an Order for goods. It is so considered by the labourer when he receives it, and is almost instantly turned into money's worth. It is merely the instrument by which the purchaseable stock of the country is distributed with convenience and advantage among the several members of the community."

This great fundamental truth was also very clearly expounded by Bastiat; he says - "This is now the time to analyse the true function of Money, leaving out of consideration the miners and importation.

"You have a crown piece. What does it mean in your hands? It is, as it were, the witness and the proof, that you have at some time done some work which instead of profiting by, you have allowed society to enjoy, in the person of your client. This crown piece witnesses that you have rendered a service to society, and moreover states the Value of it. It witnesses besides that you have not received back from society a real equivalent service as was your right. To put it in your power to exercise this Eight when and how you please, society by the hands of your client has given you an Acknowledgment, a Title, an Order of the state, a Token, a Crown-piece, in short, which does not differ from Titles of Credit, except that it carries its Value in itself (?) and if you can read with the eye of the mind, the inscription it bears you can distinctly see these words, Pay to the bearer a service equivalent to that which he has rendered to society. Value received and stated, proved and measured by that which is on me.

"After that you cede your Crown piece to me. Either it is a present, or it is in exchange for something else. If you give it to me as the price of a service, see what follows: your account as regards the real satisfaction with society is satisfied, balanced, closed. You rendered it a service in exchange for a Crown piece, you now restore it the Crown piece in exchange for a service: so far as regards you the account is settled. But I am now just in the position you were before. It is I now who have done a service to society in your person. It is I who have become its Creditor for the value of the work which I have done for you, and which I could devote to myself. It is into my hands, therefore, that this Title of Credit should pass, the witness and the proof of this social Debt."

"It is enough for a man to have rendered services, and so to have the Right to draw upon society by the means of an exchange for equivalent services. That which I call the means of exchange is Money, Bills of Exchange, Bank Notes, and also Bankers. Whoever has rendered a service, and has not received an equal satisfaction is the bearer of a Warrant, either possessed of Value, like Money, or of Credit, like Bank Notes, which gives him the Right to draw from society when he likes, where he likes, and under what form he will, an equivalent service."

So Mill says - "The pounds or shillings which a person receives weekly, or yearly, are not what constitute his income; they are a sort of Ticket or Order, which he can present for payment at any shop he pleases, and which entitle him to receive a certain value of any commodity that he makes choice of. The farmer pays his labourers, and the landlord in these Tickets as the most convenient plan for himself."

Thus all these writers are absolutely agreed as to the fundamental nature of Money: and this may be stated as the fundamental axiom of Monetary Science - The Quantity of money in any country represents the amount of Debt which there would be if there was no Money; and consequently Where there is no Debt there can be no Money. We have shown elsewhere that the greatest monetary disasters the world ever saw have been produced by violating these fundamental axioms.

13. Different nations have adopted different substances to represent this universal want. The Hebrews we know used silver: although no money was used at the period of the Homeric poems, copper skewers were some time afterwards employed as money in Greece, which were superseded by the silver coinage of Pheidon. The Ethiopians used carved pebbles, and the Carthaginians leather discs, with some mysterious substance sewed up in them. Throughout the islands of the Eastern Ocean, and many parts of Africa and India shells are still used. In Thibet, and some parts of China little blocks of compressed tea serve as money. Salt is used in Abyssinia: and in the oasis of Africa a certain measure of dates, called a hatia, serves as money. In the last century dried cod was used in Newfoundland: sugar in the West Indies: and tobacco in Virginia. Smith says that in his day a village in Scotland used nails. In some of the American colonies powder and shot; in Campeachy logwood; and among the North American Indians belts of wampum served the purpose of Money. It is said that in 1867 the proprietors in Virginia were reduced to such necessity as to use dried squirrel skins as money. And no doubt many other things have been used by other nations.

But when we consider the purposes for which Money is intended, it is easily seen that no substance possesses so many advantages as a Metal. The use of Money being to preserve the record of services being due to the owner of it for any future time, it is clear that it should not be liable to alter by time. A Money of dried cod would not be likely to keep very long, nor would it be very easily divisible. One of the first requisites of Money is that it should be divisible into very small fragments, so that its owner should be able to get any amount of services at any time he pleases. Taking these requisites into consideration, it is manifest that there is no substance which combines these qualifications so well as Metal. It is uniform in its texture, and it can be divided into any number of fragments, each of which shall be equal in value to another fragment of equal weight: and if required, these fragments can always be reunited, and form a whole again of the aggregate value of all its parts. All civilised nations, therefore, have agreed to adopt a Metal as Money, and of metals, Gold, Silver and Copper, have been chiefly used.