14

A TREATISE ON MONEY

BK. I

changes of standard, generally in the form of debase-ments, sometimes for one purpose and sometimes foranother, are the familiar theme of historians.

Nevertheless these changes of standard do not, sofar as affects the form of Money, carry us beyond thestage of Commodity Money. The debasement of thestandard, i.e. a change of standard which abruptlydiminishes the value of the money - of - account,does not, in itself, carry us a single step towardsRepresentative Money. Commodity Money does notcease to be such merely because the unit of com-modity is changed in kind or diminished in quantity.There is no evidence, until long subsequently, ofmoney which was, in any significant degree, repre-sentative or token. A coin might have a valuesomewhat superior to that of its metal content, be-cause of the convenience and prestige of the coin, orbecause the stamp was a guarantee of fineness andacceptability, or merely because of its aestheticqualities—as the dollar of Maria Theresa has, inmodern times, commended itself to the nomadicArabs of Africa . A seigniorage, too, might be chargedfor the service of mintage. There were token coinsfor very small denominations of currency. And diptor worn money might circulate amongst the vulgarat its face value. But the characteristics of theseexamples are not enough to constitute RepresentativeMoney in the proper sense of the term. The truelink between Commodity Money and RepresentativeMoney is to be found, perhaps, in Commodity Money,the supply of which is limited by absolute scarcityrather than by cost of production, and the demandfor which is wholly dependent upon the fact that ithas been selected by law or convention as the materialof money and not upon its intrinsic value in otheruses—as, for example, in the case of the primitivestone moneys of Polynesia .

Leaving on one side the paper moneys, which are