VALUE OF GOLD 
0 
equal value: if the coin were worth more than an 
equal weight of uncoined metal, people would be 
carrying the uncoined to the Mint: if coin were 
worth less than uncoined, they would be melting the 
coin down. The fact that the uncoined metal and 
the coined continue to exist side by side is proof of 
their being, weight for weight, of equal value. We 
are not to say that the value of the coin is determined 
by that of the uncoined metal any more than we are 
to say that the value of the uncoined metal is deter- 
mined by that of the coin, but we can say unhesitat- 
ingly that the two are connected together and must 
stand at the same level just as much as the water in 
two cisterns connected by a large pipe. 
This was the situation, for example, in England 
from soon after the end of the Napoleonic war till 
1914; the unit of account called the * pound,” 
originally a pound weight of silver, had through 
various vicissitudes come to be represented by a 
gold coin called a sovereign made out of 113 grains 
of pure gold and 10# of negligible alloy ; coinage was 
free and gratuitous, and coins could be melted or 
transported anywhere at the will of the owner. 
What, by an historical survival, was called * a pound ” 
might have been translated into 113 grains of fine 
gold in every contract and commercial transaction 
without producing any sort of dislocation or causing 
any one to lose or gain. It is true that people con- 
stantly paid each other “ pounds *’ without passing 
either shapeless lumps of gold or sovereigns from 
hand to hand: they paid in bank-notes and they 
paid in cheques, but any one who got a five-pound 
banknote (no small~r nctes were ‘llowed in England 
and Wales) coul” "ea. 3dr+ - Sve sover- 
eigns for it frcm the vank ‘hai cst “inyone 
who received a good cheque could dun -ayment 
of its amount either in sovereigns or 2ank of