terial, was found already adopted in the community. In different countries the legal standard of price is naturally different. In England e. g. the ounce as a weight of metal is divided into pennyweights, grains and carats Troy, but the ounce of gold as the unit of money is divided into 3 7-8 sovereigns, the sovereign into 20 shillings, the shilling into 12 pence, so that 100 pounds of 22 carat gold (1200 ounces) = 4672 sovereigns and 10
determination of the mint-price, especially in a country like England, where the government with magnificent liberality coins money gratuitously (Herr Müller seems to think that the members of the English government defray the mint expenses out of their own pockets), where it does not charge any mintage, etc., and thus if the mint-price of gold were set considerably above its market price, if instead of paying as now £3 17s. l0½d. per 1 oz. of gold, it would set the price of an ounce of gold at £3 19s., all money would flow into the mint and exchanging for the silver contained there bring it into the market to be exchanged there for the cheaper gold; the latter would in the same manner be brought again to the mint and the entire coinage system would be upset" (l. c, p. 280–281). To preserve order in English coinage, Müller falls back on "disorder." While shilling and pence are mere names of certain parts of an ounce of gold represented by signs of silver and copper, he imagines that an ounce of gold is estimated in gold, silver and copper and thus confers upon the Englishmen the blessing of a triple standard of value. Silver as a measure of money, next to gold, was formally abolished only in 1816 by 56 George III., c. 68. As a matter of fact, it was legally abolished as early as 1734 by 14 George II., c. 42, and still earlier by actual practice. There were two circumstances that made A. Müller capable of a so-called higher conception of political economy: first, his wide ignorance of economic facts; second, his dilettanti-like visionary attitude toward philosophy.
