Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/832

Rh 796 E X C E X G FOR DIRECT PAPEK. It appears from the direct rates between Londjn and Paris at 25-30 and 25-35 1st _TO remit or transfer monsy from London to Paris, it is better for Paris to draw upon London at 25-35 short, than for London to remit to Paris at 25-30 short, because by the former operation there will be made 5 cents, per pound, or about one-fifth per cent, more than by the latter. Id. To have returns from Paris, it is better, by the same 5 cents, for London to draw upon Paris than for Paris to remit to London, because the bills will cost so much less French money, or produce so much more in sterling. FOR INDIRECT PAI-EB.. 1st. For remittances to Paiis it appears from the arbitrated results that bills on Frankfort, bought in London at 121 florins per 10 sterling, and sold in Paris at 212 francs per 100 florins, will produce 12 cents, more than direct remittances from London to Paris, or 7 cents, more than is yielded by direct drafts of Paris upon London. 2&amp;lt;/_- For returns from Paris, it appears from the arbitrated results that bills on Leghorn, bought in Paris at 85 centimes per paper lira Italiana, and sold in Lon don at paper lira It.iliana 29 4~i per pound sterling, will cost 29 cents, less than direct bills from Paris, and will give 24 cents, more than drafts from London on Paris. Such is the manner in which the various exchanges are calculated in order to ascertain which will answer best for a speculation in bills through intermediate places. The contingency of a change of rates has to be considered, and the charges of brokerage and com mission on the operation have to be deducted from the result, or may be reduced when the operation is done by branches of the same house, or on joint account. The elasticity of arbitrated rates of exchange is put to the severest strain when a large subsidy, or monster indemnity, like that of France to Germany, has to be paid by one country to another. Tn these cases it is necessary to employ extensive banking co-opera tion, and at centres on which the drafts are heavy to arrange means for the support of the exchange. PARS OF EXCHANGE. (Abstracted from Tate s Modern Cambist, 16th edition.) London receives from or gives to Amsterdam, 11&quot;19 florins and stivers for 1 sterling. Antwerp and Brussels, 25 15 francs 1 sterling. Hamburg, lierlin, and German bank places, 20&quot;4- i) ,,. . .. imperial marks and pfennige f &quot; * Paris, 25-22 francs, 1 sterling. Lisbon, 53$ pence sterling 1 milreis. Madrid, 48 to 50 pence sterling 1 duro (hard dollar). Gibraltar, 4!).j pence sterling ,, 1 hard dollar. Malta, 49 pence sterling 1 pezza. St Petersburg. 37^ pence sterling ., 1 silver rouble. Warsaw, 6 40 silver roubles and cop 1 sterling. Copenhagen, 9 10 rigsdal and sk 1 sterling. Christiania. 4&quot;6(ij species and sk ,. 1 sterling. Stockholm, 18-05 riksdaler ,, 1 sterling. New York, 49J pence sterling ,. 1 gold dollar. Rio Janeiro, 27 pence sterling ,, 1 milreis gold. Buenos Ayres, C7 shillings sterling ,. 1 onca gold. Calcutta, Bombay, and Rangoon, 23 pence sterling 1 Govt. rupee. Canton, 2 78., 7 rt pence sterling 1 tael sycee silver. Japan, 51 to 52 pence stei ling 1 Span, or Mcx. dollar. (It. SO ) EXCHEQUER, COURT OF EXCHEQUER, EXCHEQUER CHAMBER. The name scaccarium, from which the word &quot;exchequer&quot; is derived, was used under the Norman kings of England to signify the treasury. Madox, in his learned History of the Exchequer, exhausts the possible definitions of the word. According to some, it is connected with scaccus or scaccnm, a chess-board, and the exchequer of England &quot; was in all probability, called scaccarium because a chequered cloth (figured with squares like a chess-board) was anciently wont to be laid on the table in the court or place of that name.&quot; &quot; From the Latin,&quot; continues Madox, &quot; cotneth the French eschequier or exchequier, and the English name from the French. Or if any one thinks more likely that -the French word was the ancienter, and the Latin one formed from it, I do not oppose him, nay, I incline to believe it was so.&quot; Another and less probable explanation is, that the original word was statarium, &quot; from its stability, as it was the firm support of the crown or kingdom.&quot; But Madox points out that from the early 1 Those marked (*) include premium on gold or silver on account of dcpreciat ion of paper currency. The mint par of Vienna is about 10 35. In Genoa and other Italian cities it would be about 25-30. The full metallic par of the Turkish piastre is lll-5 = l sterling. Where the quotations in the above table are sterling with silver money, the price of silver has been taken at 5s. an ounce, and the par of exchange has to be deduced from lower and higher prices of silver, as compared with that standard. 2 _ Foreign merchants trading with China usually keep their accounts in dollars ana cents; and the dollar issued from the mint at Hong Kong forms an acceptable boas of exchange from that station. times of tire Conquest onwards it was always called scaccarium and never statarium. At the present day, exchequer means two very different and independent institutions, the historical origin of which is one and the same. It is 3. court of law one of the three superior courts at Westminster. It is also the treasury. The connexion between the treasury aucl the court is still kept up in one or two points. The chancellor of the exchequer still takes his seat in the Exchequer .Court on certain formal occasions, and the Exchequer Court (or, as it is now called, the Exchequer Division) is still the appropriate tribunal for cases connected with the revenue. The Exchequer makes its appearance among English institutions in close connexion with the King s Court (curia regis) the germ from which so large a portion of the English constitution has sprung. In the language of later times it might be called a committee of that court specially charged with the management of the revenue. The King s Exchequer, says Theodore, &quot; was anciently a member of his court, and was wont to be held in his palace. It was a sort of subaltern court, partly resembling in its model Qiat which was properly called the curia regis, for in it the king s barons and great men who used to be in his palace near his royal person ordinarily presided, but sometimes the king himself; in it the king s chief-justiciar, his chancellor, his treasurer, his constable, his marshal, and his chamberlain performed some part of their several offices.&quot; And just as the curia regis was not a pure court of law, so the Exchequer was not merely a financial council but a court of law. Its principal business, says Madox, related to the revenue, and although the justices on circuit had cognizance of revenue matters, such matters, as they arose, were certified or sent into the Exchequer &quot; to which place the affairs of the royal revenue tended as to their centre.&quot; Madox divides the business of the Exchequer, during the period between the Conquest and the reign of King John, under the head of revenues, causes, non-litigious business, and matters of public policy. From the reign of Henry III. the Exchequer was recognized as a separate court, the others being the King s Bench and the Common Pleas (q.v.). Mr Stubbs thinks that a separate staff of judges was not assigned to each court until the end of the reign of Henry. The special business of the Exchequer wa3 as before the decision of revenue cases, but from a very early time, and in spite of repeated prohibitions, the lawyers of the Exchequer com peted for the ordinary litigious business the common pleas of the country. They finally succeeded by means of the well-known fiction which allowed one of the litigants to own that he was indebted to the king, and forbade his opponent to traverse the averment. The organization of the court seems to have been somewhat later in point of time than that of the Common Pleas and the King s Bench. The barons of the Exchequer were not at first recognized as judges. They are not mentioned in the statutes of Nisi Prius (13 Edward I. c. 30, and 14 Edward III. c. 16). In the reign of Elizabeth the Exchequer was definitely recognized a court of co-ordinate jurisdiction with the Com mon Pleas and the King s Bench. The Exchequer was further distinguished from the two other courts by possessing an equitable as well as a common law jurisdiction. &quot; The Court of Equity,&quot; says .Blackstone, &quot;is held before the lord treasurer, the chancellor of the ex chequer, the chief baron, and the three puisne ones,&quot; whereas the common law jurisdiction is exercised by thebarons onlyof the exchequer, and not the treasurer or chancellor. This equity jurisdiction was abolished in 18-tl, when two addi tional vice-chancellors were appointed in the Court of Chancery. Bv the Judicature Act of 1873 the Court of Exchequer
 * Vienna, 1 11 50 florins and kreuz, 1 sterling.
 * Genoa, and Italian towns, 29-50 lire and centes.... ,, 1 sterling.
 * Constantinople, 125 piastres 1 sterling.