Investigations in currency & finance

Front matter

ill

1761 (

INVESTIGATIONS

Preface

Towards the end of 1881 my husband collected the following papers, with the intention of publishing the volume in the spring of 1882; but the state of his health, combined with the pressure of other work, obliged him to proceed more slowly than he had hoped to do, and he therefore postponed the publication until the autumn. When he laid the book aside, hoping to resume work upon it in the autumn, he had seen all but the last two papers through the press; but the manuscript of the concluding one was still unfinished, and the Introduction, which was to have been a long and full one, bringing up the results of the papers to the present time, was hardly commenced. With regard to the Bibliography, though the greater number of the entries had been written out, there was still a good deal of arranging and of verifying references to be done; and only about one-third of the Index was made.

Several of the diagrams had been originally published with the papers, and most of the others had merely to be reduced from the large diagrams prepared at the time the papers were read. The diagrams relating to the Bank Accounts, however, having been prepared in 1862, at the time the first paper was read at the British Association, did not contain the results of the Tables relating to the later years; they have therefore been entirely re-cast by Mr. Mabson, of " The Statist." I may add that Mr. Jevons had begun to prepare a diagram on the price of wheat at Delhi from 1763 to 1836, but only outlines, insufficient to indicate the plan of it, were left, and therefore it could not be carried out and inserted.

vi PREFACE

It would have been quite impossible for me to have completed the book myself; but when I accepted Mr. Foxwell's most kind offer of help, feeling sure that to no one else would my husband have so gladly entrusted the completion of his book, I had no idea of the labour which I was imposing upon him. I did not then realise the difficulties which must be met with in taking up another's unfinished work, nor how much time and patience would be needed to overcome them. Though it is impossible that the book should be quite all that it would have been if my husband had lived to finish it himself, 1 cannot sufficiently express my thanks to Mr. Foxwell for having spared no pains to bring the work to completion in the way which the Author would himself have wished.

HARRIET A. JEVONS

2 The Chestnuts, Hampstead

Preface To The Second Edition

The original edition of this book, published in 1884, was not exhausted until more than twenty years had passed. Believing that its limited sale was due to its high price, caused by the bibliography and the many diagrams and tables it contained, I suggested to the publishers that a new edition at a considerable reduction of price should be tried, and to my request they have kindly acceded. I trust that readers may not be wanting, for much of the book is of value still. The essay on " A Serious Fall in the Value of Gold Ascertained " has a permanent interest as one of the earliest systematic attempts to gauge general fluctuations of prices; the subsequent paper on the "Variation of Prices " is one often needed for reference ; and that " On the Frequent Autumnal Pressure in the Money Market " is in some sense a classic. I venture to predict that the succeeding articles on the Periodicity of Commercial Crises and their relation to Solar Phenomena will be read with renewed interest in a few years' time. Recent work in Astronomy and Meteorology has gone far towards establishing the connection between commercial and cosmic phenomena which my father foresaw, though probably the latter are somewhat more complicated than he supposed. Finally, the paper on the Gold Coinage may again claim attention in connection with the enumeration of British Gold Coin recently undertaken by a Committee of the British Association ; and the essays on Bimetallism are always instructive and entertaining.

In order to reduce the cost of producing the book some sacrifices were inevitable. The diagram of the Bank of viii PREFACE

England accounts, and the large historic diagram, have been omitted, as I hope it may be possible at some future time to bring them up to date and issue them as a separate publication. The elaborate tables of Bank accounts following the paper on " The F'requent Autumnal Pressure in the Money Market " have been omitted as unnecessary, because almost all the figures contained in them are illustrated in the accompanying diagrams (Plates VIII. to XII.). The bibliography of works on currency is also omitted. Copies of the original edition of the book, in which students so desiring may consult the portions not to be found in this reprint, are available in many public libraries.

Some trifling corrections of obvious misprints or slips have been made in the text, but it is otherwise unaltered. The diagrams were unfortunately not well reproduced in the original edition, and in this issue I have taken pains to correct inaccuracies (usually small) wherever found. Most of the curves have been checked with the original figures. In the case of the diagram of the " Exports from Maryland and Virginia" (facing p. 221), I recalculated the three-yearly averages from the original numbers in Sir Charles Whitworth's tables in his " State of the Trade of Great Britain" (London, 1776), and have replotted these, and the annual figures, entirely anew, though on the same scale as the original.

H. STANLEY JEVONS

Cardiff, c,tk December, 1908

Contents

PAGE

Preface by Mrs. Jevons v

Preface to the Second Edition vii

Introduction by Professor H. S. Foxwell - - - xiii

I. On the Study of Periodic Commercial Fluctua-

II. A Serious Fall in the Value of Gold ascertained,

and its Social Effects set forth (1863)

Preface 13

Chap. I. Of the Nature and Difficulty of the Inquiry - - 15 Chap. II. Inquiry into Prices before and after the Gold

Discoveries 30

Chap. IV. The Social Effects of the Depreciation of Gold

set forth ']'^

Chap. V. Is a Remedy needful or possible? - - - 88

Appendix. Notes A — G 99

III. The Variation of Prices, and the Value of the

Currency since 1782 (1865) 112

IV. The Depreciation of Gold (1869) 143

V. On the Frequent Autumnal Pressure in the Money

Market, and the Action of the Bank of England (1866)

Preliminary Remarks 151

(i) On the Average Fluctuations of the Currency and the

Bank Accounts within the Year 156

(2) On the Causes of the Autumnal Pressure - - - 160

(3) Special Examinations of the Pressure of 1865 - - 163

(4) On the Action of the Bank of England - - - 167 Appendix I. 172

X CONTENTS

VI. The Solar Period and the Price of Corn (1875) - 175

VII. The Periodicity of Commercial Crises and its

Physical Explanation (1878), with Postscript April (1882) 187

VIII. Commercial Crises and Sun-Spots (1878-9)

IX. On the Condition of the Gold Coinage of the

Kingdom, with Reference to the question of International Currency (1868)

I. On the Necessity for a Re-coinage and the Introduction

of an International Money ------ 222

II. An Inquiry into the Amount and Age of the Gold

III. The Age of the Gold Circulation 250

IV. Proportions of Coinage surviving ----- 255 V. On the Deficiency of Weight of the Gold Coinage - - 257

X. An ideally perfect System of Currency (1875) (^ot

previously published) ------- 272

XI. Gold and Silver: A Letter to M. Wolowski (1868).

(Only part translated and published in Wolowski's " L'Or

XII. The Silver Question (1877) ------ 282

.XIV. Sir Isaac Newton and Bimetallism. (Left unfinished in 1882.) With an Appendix of Fragments ON Bimetallism from the Author's MSS. 304

Appendix on the Theory of Cycles ..--.- 332

LIST OF DIAGRAMS

Periodic Commercial Fluctuations :

To face page

I. Monthly and Quarterly Averages lo

Serious Fall in the Value of Gold : II. I. Yearly Averages of Prices, etc. 1845-62 - - - 44

III. 2. Logarithmic Chart, showing Average Rise of Prices - 52

Proportional Variation of Prices, 1782-1865 :

IV. I. Metals, Iron, Timber, Oils ------ 142

V. 2. Fibres, Cottons, Dyes ------ 142

VI. 3. Corn, Wheat, Fodder, Meat, Tropical Food - - 142

VII. 4. General Variation of the whole 40 Commodities - - 142

Commercial Fluctuations : VIII. I. Weekly Averages of Bank Accounts (Annual Variation) 173 IX. 2. Quarterly Variation of Bank Accounts - - - - I73 X. 3. Monthly Variation of Bank Accounts - - - - I73 XI. 4. Bank Accounts after Elimination of the Quarterly

Variation - - I73

XII. 5. Variation of Country, Irish, and Scotch Note Circulation - - - 173

Exports from England to India, 1708- 18 10:

XIII. I. Total Annual Values - - 198

XIV. 2. Three-Year Averages. Logarithmic Chart - - - 198

Periodicity of Crises : XV. Bankruptcies in England and Wales, 1867-81 - - - 200

Commercial Crises : XVI. Exports from Maryland, etc., to England, 1697-1775 - 221

XVII. I. Proportion of Surviving Coinage 256

XVIII. 2. Weight of Sovereigns, etc. ------ 259