274 VALUATION, DEPRECIATION AND THE RATE-BASE
money when functioning as a standard of value is desirable and
to prevent such injustice as was done in Russia, in Austria, in
Germany and even in France, and to a less degree in the United
States and other countries, such a substitute must be found.
This is not to be sought among the metals but rather among the
things which in civilized communities are necessary to meet the
wants of man. The ideal, and what would appear to be the
natural, unit of this character, to supplement (not to replace)
money, is that which, in any country, is made up of definite
quantities of staples such as food and fuel, iron and each of the
many other things which a family requires to live in ordinary
comfort — each of these several things in fairly close proportion
to the nation’s annual consumption thereof.
The introduction of such a supplementary commodity unit
into the industrial and business life of the country would be
simple. Money would still be necessary and would continue to
be used as a medium of exchange, as at present, in all ordinary
transactions involving only a negligible time element. Purchase
and sale transactions would be conducted as is now customary,
cost being determined and the price fixed in terms of money.
Alongside of such a norm the use of money would be subject to
certain limitations, easily recognized, which should long ago have
been prescribed
Let the proposed unit, for example, be called a “ com ” (ab-
breviated from com-modity unit) and let it be supposed that,
to start with, the quantities of each of the 300, or more, things
which the U. S. Department of Labor takes into account when
it fixes the general commodity index number” have been
determined, which, in the proportion of general consumption
thereof, would at the average wholesale prices during the ten
years 19oo to 1gog (incl.) have been purchasable for some round
number of dollars, say $1000. One thousandth part of these
several quantities considered collectively, may then be con-
sidered “ one com.” Once fixed in this fashion and defined by
congressional action, the “ com ”’ would remain a definite per-
manent legal unit until modified — should such modification
