ustom long before bankers were heard of. And it
was selected because of its permanence, ductility and other qualities,
especially its beauty as ornament, which made man, eager to adorn
himself, his women-kind, and the temples of his gods, always ready
to accept it in payment, knowing also that, because of this
acceptability, he would always be able to exchange it into any goods
that he wanted.

Any other commodity that earned this quality of universal
acceptability could do the work of gold just as well. But until one
has been found, gold, as long as it keeps that quality, holds the
field. And bankers use it as the basis for money and credit, not
because, as Mr Kitson says, they selected it owing to its scarcity,
but because this quality of universal acceptability made it the thing
in which all debts, both at home and abroad, could be paid. "Given,"
says Mr Kitson, "a self-contained trading community with a certain
quantity of legal tender, just sufficient for its commercial needs,
and it makes no difference either to the value or efficiency of the
money or to the trade affected whether it be made of metal or paper."
Quite so, but trading communities are not self-contained. Their
currency has to be convertible into something acceptable abroad, and
that something is, at present, gold. It is possible that the world
may some day evolve an international paper currency that will be
everywhere acceptable. But such an ideal requires a growth of honesty
and mutual confidence among the nations that puts it a long way off.
And how is its volume to be regulated?

This question is all-important, whether the currency be national or
international. Mr Kitson speaks of a currency "just sufficient" for
the community's commercial needs. Who is to decide when the currency
is just sufficient? The Government? A sweet world we should live in,
if among other party questions, Parliament had to consider multiplying
or contracting the currency every year or every month, with all the
interests that would be affected by the consequent rise or fall in
prices, lobbying, speech-making, and pulling strings to work the
oracle to suit their pockets. And, according to Mr Kitson's view, that
the volume of trade is limited by the supply of currency, this volume
would then depend on the whims of the House of Commons, half the
members of which would probably be innocent of a glimmering of
understanding of the enormously important question that they were
d