The following list is an enlargement of a similar one which formed itself under the writer's hand in the course of an examination into modern monetary controversy, and which was printed in 1876 as an appendix to a work on "Silver and Gold," offered as a printed deposition before the Congressional Monetary Commission which began its sessions in the autumn of that year. That list was based upon the bibliography of Money, printed by Dr. Soetbeer in his "Memorial concerning German Monetary Unification," in 1869, to which additions were made by him in an appendix to his "German Monetary System," 1874. As early as 1853, M. Michel Chevalier had appended to his important article on Money, in the Dictionary of Political Economy of Coquelin and Guillaumin, a selected list of authorities from which a few titles have here been borrowed. I should also mention the admirable catalogue of works in the Library of Congress on Political Economy, etc., prepared by its Librarian, Mr. A. R. Spofford, in which I have found a large number of titles.

I have the further pleasure of recording my obligation to Professor Soetbeer for the personal communication of several titles in addition to those before mentioned, and a like indebtedness to M. Eudore Pirmez, M. C. Feer-Herzog, to M. Henri Cernuschi, and to M. Esquirou de Parieu.

A PARTIAL LIST OF MODERN PUBLICATIONS ON THE SUBJECT OF MONEY.

An indispensable source of knowledge about Money is

First. That BODY, OF LAW which in the different nations of the world defines and regulates the status of Money, property in Money, and Money debt, or obligations enforcible by delivery of Money.

Second. That BODY OF LAW which determines what commodity or commodities may remain or may become Money.

Third. That BODY OF LAW which prescribes the process by which such commodity may become Money.*

*THE POSITION OF LAW IN THE DOCTRINE OF MONEY.

AN EXPLANATION.

To the contribution to the Study of Monetary Policy here presented it may prove useful to prefix some words explanatory of certain features of this voluminous list of books, which, from all but a few of the doctrinal writers named in it, would elicit expressions of unqualified dissent. I refer chiefly to the prominence which I have given to law, according to its different branches, as material for knowledge about Money.

This view of the relation of Money and law has not yet been promulgated, so to speak, ex cathedra; it has not yet found its way into Manuals of Political Economy through which the youth are taught, and the greater part of the monetary powers that be have not yet consciously framed their political action in obedience to its teachings.

This view is, in fact, excluded from credence by the doctrines which originally

While the expression "law" is applicable to each of these classes, yet, in its narrow sense, "Law" belongs especially to the first class, while the second and third may be comprised in the word "legislation."

Although existing in print, this material of knowledge must, for the most part, be gathered here and there in publications too numerous to be named, which are generally neither in title, nor according to common belief, germane to the subject of Money; namely, in the reports of decisions of courts, in juristic treatises, and in statutes, which are the source of the material first mentioned, while the latter are chiefly matter of statute, and sometimes of administrative regulation.

The important questions at issue which concern Money, being political in their nature and demanding the attention of the publicist rather than of the practicing lawyer, of course no approach to a systematic treatise upon Money or upon any department of Monetary Science is to be looked for in such works. It must further be observed that even in matters within the direct range of their purpose the classification of the contents of law books often leaves much to be desired. Hence, in suggesting the titles Money, Legal Tender, Debt, Loan, Interest, Negotiability, Fungibility, Specific Performance, Damages, Taxation, Fines, Penalties and Forfeitures, Coins, Coinage, Mint, &c., as being titles in the index and table of contents of legal works which bear upon the subject, I can do so only with the reservation that neither in the books themselves, excepting books of statutes, nor in the phraseology of references supplied motive for the most striking monetary movement of modern times; the still unabandoned persecution of Silver by the civilized nations.

Gold and Silver, say the leaders of this movement, are commodities and they are nothing else. Like iron, like wheat, they belong to commerce, not to legislation. The stamp of the Mint upon the disc of metal is a mere certificate of its weight and fineness. The great law of supply and demand which regulates the movements and the value of the precious metals pays no heed to the arbitrary commands of Legislatures and of Courts.

The learned reader will recognize these as admitted household truths of the magistral economic science of the day.

The acute reader will observe that with proper interpretation, these postulates are capable of establishing in the field of practical policy that Monometallism can do no harm, and that Bi-Metallism can do no good, and that the choice of a Money Unit is strictly analagous to the choice of a unit of weight or of measure. (If proof were needed here, I could most conveniently refer to the expressions of some of the acute and learned European Delegates at the Conference in earlier pages of this volume.) The field is thus, of course, left clear that Gold, the lighter, the nobler metal, may draw mankind onward in the path of simplicity, unity, brotherhood, by becoming, as universal and sole Money, the brightest jewel of that crowning glory of the world's future progress, a Metric System embracing the entire globe.

And in favor of these Postulates, and of the conclusions they justified, and of the hopes they inspired, it has long been possible to cite the practice of England, the policy of Germany, and the aspirations of France.

On the other hand, the late monetary action of the Government of the United States,

to their contents will the reader find a presentation of the subject constructed with special reference to Money, nor in fact aught but the raw material of knowledge.

IN GENERAL ALL WORKS ON NATIONAL ECONOMY, POLITICAL OR SOCIAL SCIENCE, CONTAIN ESSAYS UPON MONEY..

The same may be said of CYCLOPÆDIC WORKS, while in general HisTORICAL WORKS present facts of importance in Monetary History.

In general may also be cited works which supply material for estimating the AMOUNT AND NATURE OF EXCHANGES made in the different nations or between one and another, whether by transfer of Money or by adjustment on paper; works explanatory of the Banking and ClearingHouse Systems of the different nations; works treating of the development of Commerce and Industry, the increase of Exchanges, &c.; customs returns of the different nations which indicate the quantities of merchandise exported and imported and the valuations set upon them by the various parties interested; and works of commercial and industrial statistics and notably upon PRICES; while among Periodical Publications, Annuals, Reviews, Magazines, Weekly and Daily Journals, especially, of course, those devoted to economic subjects, are to be found important facts, and also many essays of interest, notably as illustrating the progress of Monetary controversy.

Concerning the Precious Metals may be cited: In general, works on

not in coining the new Silver dollar, be it understood, but in limiting the coinage and in calling the Monetary Conference of 1878, while it was the announcement of a policy of practical opposition to that which prevails in Europe, was also in the field of science, if rightly understood, a Declaration of Independence from the scientific errors of the anti-silver theories.

By the law of February 28, 1878, the United States became a teacher of reformed monetary doctrine.

The United States proposed to Europe concurrent coinage of Silver and Gold at one ratio, with a view to their concurrent use in the countries of the proposed Union, and to the comparative steadiness of their relation to each other everywhere; and to do this was equivalent to an assertion by the United States, with that far-resounding utterance of which none but a great nation is master, that human law is a factor in the movement, and of the value, of the precious metals.

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the international questions to which the world's attention has thus been directed. The material interests of mankind are still hanging upon the issue of this controversy of the nations upon a question of fact. All science agrees that steadiness in value is the test of good Money, and every one knows that confidence is the "life of business." If national laws be an important factor of demand or of supply of the metals, and hence a factor of their value, the monetary structure of the world, the entire economic organism in many countries, has been and must remain at the mercy of ill-advised legislation even in the few; while in the practical problem now at issue, it must be recognized that the persecution of Silver being an attack against the steadiness of purchasing power of the world's Money, both