Page:Stabilizing the dollar, Fisher, 1920.djvu/333

 APPENDIX V

PRECEDENTS

1. Contracts in Terms of a Commodity

In Appendix IV we have seen many examples of discontent growing out of the instability of monetary standards. Such discontent has often expressed itself in action—sometimes wise and sometimes unwise.

In the present Appendix, examples will be noted of intelligent attempts to meet the evils of monetary instability. These attempts are more numerous than is usually realized and constitute a surprising mass of precedent for every one of the principles of stabilization which, together, constitute the proposal of this book.

I shall begin with the simplest mode of escape from an unsatisfactory monetary standard. This is to make our contracts in terms of some staple commodity, like wheat or iron.

Professor Ferguson of Bryn Mawr tells me that: "In Roman times in Egypt, as well as previously under the Ptolemies, a large number of contracts show that wheat was used in paying rent on farm land, or, if the tenant preferred, coin (usually copper drachmas) to the amount equivalent to the value of wheat."

In England, the "tithe averages" have been made to vary with the value of grain, so that the tithe was, in effect, so much grain, not so much money; or rather it was money measured by grain. Another excellent example is the "Scotch Fiars prices" previously mentioned in another connection. These have existed 279