PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. With some of their Applications to Social Philosophy. By JOHN STUART MILL. Edited with an Introduction by W. J. ASHLEY, Ph.D., Professor of Commerce in the University of Birmingham, and an Index by Miss M. E. ELLIS. Crown 8vo, 5s. POLITICAL ECONOMY. A Short Text Book of Political Economy with Problems for Solution, Hints for Supplementary Reading, and a Supplementary Chapter on Socialism. By J. E. SYMES, M.A. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. UNEMPLOYMENT. A Problem of Industry. By W. H. BEVERIDGE, Stowell Civil Law Fellow of University College, Oxford; formerly Sub-Warden of Toynbee Hall. 8vo, 7s. 6d. net. UNEMPLOYMENT AND TRADE UNIONS. By CYRIL JACKSON, Vice-Chairman of the London County Council. With a Preface by the Right Hon. VISCOUNT MILNER, P.C., G.C.B. Crown 8vo, Is. 6d. net; paper covers, IS. net. THE TRUST MOVEMENT IN BRITISH INDUSTRY. A Study of Business Organisation. By HENRY W. MACROSTY, B.A. 8vo, 9s. net. A HISTORY OF COMMERCE. BY CLIVE DAY, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Economic History in Yale University. With 34 Maps. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. net. THE BANK AND THE TREASURY. By F. A. CLEVELAND, Ph.D. Crown 8vo, 10s. 6d. net. LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA. THE BRITISH EMPIRE & BY AGNES F. DODD LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1911 All rights reserved PREFACE THE aim of this book is to give a short general history of money in the English-speaking countries—in the British Empire and the United States. The student is better provided with text-books on American than on English monetary history. For the latter there are at his disposal, on the one hand, books on general political and economic history of which the history of money forms comparatively only a small part, and, on the other hand, books on the various branches of the subject-on coins, prices and banking; but he finds a real difficulty in getting in any convenient compass a general knowledge of the financial development of the country. Yet the history of money has an interest of its own; its study in many cases throws fresh light on historical problems, and in its bearings on political and economic history it has an importance which, from lack of definite knowledge on the subject, the student is often apt to overlook. The problems that confronted a mediæval statesman, in so far as he had to deal with finance, can only be understood if the principles underlying mediæval finance are grasped-the impossibility, for instance, of keeping coin in the country under a badly regulated and imperfectly understood bimetallic system, with the result that one or the other, and occasionally both of the precious metals were constantly disappearing from the circulation; the constant struggle against false coiners and money-dealers, who were always on the look-out to make their private profit by exporting and melting down the good coins and flooding the country with debased money; V |