nineteenth
century nations were divided, in accordance with the metals they used
as standards, into two great groups, silver- and gold-using. Since
that time, and more rapidly after 1850, gold has displaced silver as
the standard money. In a higher degree than any other one material,
gold has the qualities of a good standard for rich and industrially
developed communities. England for a long period practically has had
gold as its standard money; the United States since 1834 (except for
the period of paper money from 1862 to 1879); France since about 1879,
having shifted gradually from silver, after 1855, under the working
of the bimetallic law; Germany since 1873; and Japan since the later
nineties. Other countries have been striving to attain it. Since
about 1890 some states (including Mexico) and some of the colonial
possessions of the great nations (including India and the Philippines)
have adopted the plan of "the gold-exchange standard." By this plan
gold is the standard price unit, while silver continues to be used
all but exclusively as the material in circulation, its amount being
controlled and its value regulated on principles to be explained below
under coinage, seigniorage, and foreign exchange. There are now left
but a few silver-standard countries, the most important being China.
There are, however, numerous countries, notably in South America and
Central America, which have fiduciary paper-money standards.[2]

Sec. 6.# Varying extent of the use of money#. Trade by the use of money
at no time has become the exclusive method. Barter still lingers
to-day.[3] The extent to which, on an average, money is used in
different parts of the world differs widely. The use of money in
Siberia is less than in European Russia, and its use is less there
than in western Europe. The use of money as compared with barter is
generally much greater in the cities than in the rural districts. In
the cities of Mexico not only money, but banks and credit agencies are
in general use; whereas the rural districts are more backward and make
far more use of barter than is the case in the United States. At the
ports in the cities of China, India, and South America the use of
money may be very like that in European cities; but go a little way
into the interior of these countries and conditions as to the use of
money change greatly.

However, the comparative per capita amounts of money (in terms of
American dollars) in circulation in dif