PAPER CURRENCY 195

ment strikes the coins which its subjects need for business
uses. As already remarked incidentally, some of these are
full-valued coins, that is, coins whose value as metal is the
same as their value as coin. Such coins, forming the basis
of the valuations in the country where they are circulated
freely, are called standard coin. For the purpose of serving
as small change, or even as a medium of exchange for values
larger than are conveniently represented in standard coin,
coins of other metals may be struck and given currency as
the equivalent of definite amounts of the standard coin.
Thus, where gold is the standard, silver, copper, bronze, and
hickel coins are used to represent values not conveniently
handled in the shape of gold. When silver was the standard
in England, gold coins were similarly used for values too
large for convenient representation by silver coins, just as we
Now use notes to represent multiples of the common gold
toins, These representative, or token, coins are, in modern
Practice, often worth a good deal less as metal than as coin,
and the right of issue needs to be restricted as with notes.
The control of the issue by the government is the most
&gt;ffective and usual way of doing this.
The coinage is generally carried out by a government
®stablishment, thus affording as good a guarantee as a
People can have of the honesty of the work done, and its
reliability, though history records cases where the trust was
bused, The token coins are conveniently made of base
Metal, or so as to be of less value as metal than as coin, for
ny inducement to melt or export them is thus reduced or
Avoided, and the country’s supply of small change not made
Subject to the exigencies of wholesale trade or financial
OPerations. Thus, silver was formerly coined in England at
52 pence per ounce standard, but since 1816 has been coined
*t 66 pence per ounce. For the last six years, at least, its
Price has not been equal to even the half of 62 pence per
ounce, which was about its market price when coins were
struck at that rate. It is clearly desirable that no private
Person should be able to require silver to be manufactured
Ito coin at his desire and for his profit. Only by limiting
the issues to the amounts needed, for the purpose of small