The Paper Moneys of Europe

The Paper Moneys of Europe, with the subtitle Their Moral and Economic Significance, is by Francis W. Hirst. A reflection in the text says that five thousand years after the invention of writing, three thousand after the invention of money, and (nearly) five hundred since the invention of printing, governments all over the world are employing the third invention. The text says the coins struck by the best cities of ancient Greece are a model and a reproach to our modern mints.

The text says copper possessed in a less degree the qualifications of gold and silver, but it was the first metal to be coined into money in ancient Rome. A list of exchange prices says two Italian lire cost the speaker eightpence, two Greek drachmas eightpence and two Roumanian lei sixpence. A conference is said to be of opinion that the revival of credit requires as primary conditions the restoration of order in public finance, the cessation of inflation, the purging of currencies, and the freedom of commercial transactions.