Business Hints for Men and Women Part 16

The money of one country cannot legally be made to pay a debt in another country, unless both parties to the payment agree to it.

When gold is exchanged to settle the balances of trade between two countries, it is not reckoned, if coined, at its face value, but at its bullion value.

The word "pecunia" meant in ancient Greece and Rome a flock or herd.

In those days live stock were used as a medium of exchange, or money.

We keep the word and often use it as in "pecuniary" affairs, and when we call a moneyless man, "impecunious."

UNITED STATES MONEY

The United States Government reserves to itself the right under the const.i.tution, to coin and issue the money to be used by its own people.

Formerly we had two standards of value, gold and silver, or bimetalism.

If gold and silver were produced in relatively equal quant.i.ties, the world would go on trading with money of both kinds, but the proportions are not the same.

Among the Aztecs and Peruvians silver ranked with gold as two to one, that is, two pounds of silver would purchase as much as one pound of gold.

But when great silver mines were discovered and new methods were discovered for extracting the metal, it became more and more abundant, till it depreciated far below the former value it had in its relation to gold.

Most of the commercial nations decided to have but one standard of value, and that gold, long before the United States fell into line.

Our money measure is known as the decimal, or metric. It would be convenient, if we could follow the example of nearly all the other commercial nations, and use the metric system for all our weights and measures.

OUR METAL MONEY

In the United States Treasury at Was.h.i.+ngton, there are many million dollars in silver coins and bullion.

The gold standard has not driven silver out of circulation, for it is still found convenient to use it in settling immediately our smaller business transactions.

When the silver dollar was first coined, and indeed up to the present date, the intention was that it should contain about a dollar's worth of silver, or 374 1/4 Troy grains of the pure metal. This amount of silver was supposed to represent permanently 24 3/4 grains of pure gold, and it did so represent its value at one time, and would have continued to do so, had the relative output of both metals been the same.

Our chief mint is in Philadelphia, where is coined all the copper, nickel, silver, and gold money in use.

To imitate these metals, even where the full value is given, const.i.tutes the criminal offence called "counterfeiting."

In former times, some of our older readers will remember them, the Government meant to have the metal in each coin of about its unstamped value in the market.

In those days the cent was as large as our present silver half dollar, and the copper two-cent piece was a monster in the way of coinage.

Now our copper and nickel coins are small and can be carried without testing strength of pockets. They are regarded as money "tokens."

Silver coins that are punched can be refused in the settlement of a debt.

Punched gold coins should always be refused, for they are never of their face value.

Silver coins may be used in the settlement of bills up to $5.00.

Gold coins are, of course, legal tender up to any amount.

PAPER MONEY

We usually cla.s.s all paper money as "bills."

There are three cla.s.ses of bills, all quite different in their inception and meaning. These are--

1. National bank notes.

2. Treasury notes or "greenbacks."

3. Treasury certificates.

BANK NOTES

A national bank note is the guaranteed promise of some national bank to pay coin or its equivalent to any one presenting the note at the bank and asking to have the exchange made.

This exchange is called "redeeming."

If you examine a bank bill you will notice that it is drawn much like an ordinary business "demand" note, made payable to "bearer,"

and signed by the bank president and cas.h.i.+er.

For every dollar of its own sent out in the form of a bill by a national bank, the Government holds a dollar of the bank's collateral to guarantee the redemption of the note if the bank should fail.

National bank notes are received in all business transactions, because they are secured by the Government, yet there are cases in which even the Government will not receive them in payment of a claim, nor pay them out itself.

1. All import duties must be paid in gold.

2. The Government pays the interest on its own bonds in gold.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing--a department of the United States Treasury--makes and prints all the national bank notes.

On all these notes the names of the United States Treasurer and the United States Register appear. The names look like signatures, but they are facsimilies and are printed with the note.

The notes are printed on specially prepared paper, to imitate which is regarded as a counterfeit.

Soiled and worn out bank notes may be exchanged for fresh ones at the Treasury Department.

"GREENBACKS"

Greenbacks are treasury notes. The name comes from the color in which they first appeared in the years of our Civil War.

The treasury note is really an engraved promissory note of the United States Government made payable to the bearer, and bearing the signatures of the Treasurer and Register of the Treasury.

These notes are issued in denominations of from five to ten thousand dollars.

Formerly there were one and two-dollar treasury notes issued, and we still find some of these "old-timers" in circulation.

There are so many treasury notes in circulation that the Government, vast though its bullion and coin reserves are, could not redeem them if presented at once.

The treasury note is a legal tender for any amount of indebtedness.