Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/316

250 the king, he turned this material into money, he would scarcely have made as much as he had given for it. Mr. Mariner was then going on to shew the convenience of money as a me- dium of exchange, when Filimoeatoo interrupted him, saying to Finow, I understand how it is ; — money is less cumbersome than goods, and it is very convenient for a man to exchange away his goods for money ; which, at any other time, he can exchange again for the same or any other ^oods that he may want ; whereas the goods themselves may perhaps spoil by keeping (par- ticularly if provisions) but the money he sup- posed would not spoil ; and although it was of no true value itself, yet being scarce and diffi- cult to be got without giving something useful and really valuable for it, it was imagined to be of value ; and if every body considered it so, and would readily give their goods for it, he did not see but what it was of a sort of real value to all who possessed it, as long as their neighbours chose to take it in the same way. Mr. Mariner found he could not give a better explanation, he therefore told Filimoeatoo that his notion of the nature of money was a just one. After a pause of some length, Finow re- plied that the explanation did not satisfy him : he still thought it a foolish thing that people should place a value on money, when they