development to the varying cost of living. If we consider a single phenomenon in order to infer either the superiority or inferiority of one in respect to the other, we arrive at a classification like the one by Tounescemer, who distinguishes vegetables as either trees or herbs. Judged by its climate, Italy is the garden of Europe, but judged by the conditions of Italy's agriculture, such a title becomes purely ironical. When J. S. Mill says: wages depend on the demand and supply of labor, or as it is often expresed, by the relation of the population to capital1 he, as well as Cairnes,2 Sidgwick and several others, fall into a common error, by having failed to observe that, if the amount of wages are determined by anything, it is determined by the conditions and the cost of living in the several economic and social environments: wages are relatively high where the cost of living is high, while they are low where the cost of living is low. Besides, wages are influenced by several other causes.

The improved means of transportation and the widened field of economic markets have modified or totally banished certain differences in the value of precious metals and commodities; apparently a balance of trade has been established in the economic market of the world. Now gold and silver are quoted at the same ratio in the leading markets of the world, and it would be impossible to find an instance parallel to 1324, when the relation of gold to silver in Florence was 1:13.62, while in France the proportion was 1:12.60; twenty years later, in 1344, the rate fell to 1:11. On the other hand, in the IXth century the ratio in Florence and Milan was 1 :9.25. But even though the economic isolation of the middle ages has largely disappeared, the natural differences between the two countries are still left, and will never disappear, but will produce equally important and natural differences in the economic and

1 J. S. Mill, Political Economy, Book II, ch. xi, § 1.

2 Cairnes, J. E., Leading Principles, Book II, ch. i, § 5.

3 Sidgwick, Principles of Political Economy, Book II, ch. viii, §1. See also Taussig, F. W., Wages and Capital, 1890, p. 76–77.

4 Villari, Storie Fiorentine, Firenze, 1829, Vol. i. Shaw, History of Currency,

social conditions of those countries. The economic condition of Roumania is very inferior to that of England, owing to the high rate of interest; while in England capital is abundant at a very low rate. Nevertheless, wheat is cheaper in Roumania than it is in England; money has a greater purchasing power in Roumania, or rather, the cost of living is lower. On the other hand, the productive powers of the English workman and his better skill are superior to those of the Roumanian workman. Were it possible to continue and weigh all these and other factors, we should be able then to ascertain which of the two countries is superior in international competition, or in any one line of production. This is not possible, but the ultimate result of those social and natural conditions determine the respective positions of two countries in international competition.

The same kind of money varies considerably when it is applied to measure the prices of two different economic markets. On the other hand, the bimetallists mistake the effect for the cause, and delude themselves by thinking that international bimetallism would place all countries on an equal footing in the international competition. It would be sufficient to take a hundred franc banknote and spend it in Belgium, to find that the value of the note had changed: on July 31st, 1896, its value in Belgium was 100.05 fr.; while in Germany it was worth 100.08 fr.; 100.09 fr. in Austria; 100.19 fr. in England; 100.37 fr. in Switzerland; 100.87 fr. in the United States; 101 fr. in Holland; 107.37 fr. in Italy; 119.86 fr. in Spain; 150 fr. in Russia; 159.63 fr. in India; 177.25 fr. in Greece; 187.15 fr. in Japan; 190.56 fr. in China; 194.27 fr. in Mexico; 270.83 fr. in Brazil; 274.72 fr. in Chili; and 284.50 fr. in the Argentine Republic. In no country have the hundred francs of France the same value. But if to this intrinsic and nominal value could be added the variations caused by other agencies at work in those economic markets, the difference would be still greater in the value of the hundred French francs, owing to the many and continuous fluctuations in the prices of those countries. King Peter IV of Aragon, in 1346, ordered the coinage of a gold coin identical with that of Florence. But

such a coin was too high for the economic market of Aragon, and Peter IV was forced to recall his edict and issue another, by which he ordered the coinage of a standard money equal to the French. A great crisis followed, and poverty was so appalling that the Cortes of Medina del Campo were compelled to issue the famous edict scaling down the money.1

The value of money reflects the economic and natural conditions of the different markets. They exist independently of money. If those natural conditions favor the international competition in an economic market or do not favor it, the value of the money of such a market will reflect such a state of affairs. As the barometer marks fair and stormy weather, and the thermometer heat or cold, without one instrument acting upon the other, so money measures the economic condition of markets. In Florence, in 1347, the ratio of gold to silver was lower than abroad. The wool manufacturers paid their workmen in silver, while their credits abroad were paid in gold.2 Nevertheless, this apparent loss did not cause their economical ruin: the price of wool reflects the increased wages in silver. Money never can act artificially. It only reflects the economic condition of the market using it.

If the advice of bimetallists should be followed by all countries, regardless of their interests and historical traditions, and if they should adopt silver as a universal money, although countless reasons are against it, as the various monetary conferences have clearly shown, it would be impossible to find, soon after its adoption, the same nominal value of money, even in two neighboring countries.

Rome, Italy.

G. M. FIAMINGO.

1 Juan de Dios de la Rada y Delgado, Bibliografia numismatica Española. Madrid, 1886.

2 G. Villari, 1. c.

THE FRANCHISES OF GREATER NEW YORK.

TUDENTS of municipal government in America have

usually devoted themselves so exclusively to the forms. of city government that they have had little time left in which to consider what purposes those forms are intended to subserve. In like manner the State legislatures, when framing city charters, have been at great pains to construct as the central feature of each municipal government a complex and unwieldy local legislature modeled more or less closely upon their own organization, without making sufficient allowance for the widely different functions to be performed. This is reversing the processes of nature, which always makes the structure to fit its particular functions; and one result of this illogical mode of procedure is that when it comes to the actual work of municipal administration the ready-made city councils are usually found to be misfits. It is therefore encouraging to find a charter in which more attention than usual is paid to municipal functions; and this is the case with the charter of Greater New York, although the points which gave the Charter Commission most trouble, and led to most discussion both by the Commissioners and by the public, were matters relating to structure and the power of removal.

In no respect has the failure of city councils in America been greater or more disastrous than in their relations to companies enjoying or applying for municipal franchises; for not only have these special privileges in the public streets usually been given away with little or no return to the city in any form, but the authorities granting them have either failed to retain or neglected to exercise adequate powers of regulation and control. In short, corporations created supposedly to serve the public have too often become the masters of the public's representatives, either through outright corruption or through the more refined arts of the lobbyist. There is no reason to suppose that New York had been worse than many another city in this respect, and yet the hand of the franchise-grabber has left a dark stain upon its history.

The methods of granting franchises in New York City hitherto have been utterly unsystematized and of very uneven merit, but their very variety makes them suggestive and useful for purposes of study. The ferries have always been kept well in hand by the city authorities, at least ever since the days of Peter Stuyvesant, whose perquisite the ferry rent was; for even at that time the magistrates of New Amsterdam licensed the ferrymen. There was a time, indeed, before the middle of the seventeenth century, when there was little ferry traffic, and when the ferry was a very simple affair which needed no regulation by the authorities. We are told that "Cornelis Dircksen, who had a farm in that vicinity, came at the sound of a horn, which hung against a tree, and ferried the waiting passengers across the river in a skiff, for the moderate charge of three stivers in wampum." But the travel across the East River increased rapidly, until there was "daily confusion occurring among the ferrymen on Manhattan Island, so that the inhabitants are waiting whole days before they can obtain a passage, and then not without danger, and at an exorbitant price;" and so it became necessary to bring the business under governmental control. In 1654 Governor Stuyvesant and his council enacted that no person should ferry without a license from the city magistrates, required suitable accommodations to be provided, and fixed the tolls. The burgomasters had made application for the ferry rent as a source of municipal revenue, but as long as Peter Stuyvesant remained in power the city authorities were obliged to be content with the power of issuing the licenses. Under English rule the ferry rent was for many years the chief source of municipal income, and together with the revenue from the city wharf paid most of the ordinary municipal expenses. The right of the city to control the ferry monopoly and to make it a source of revenue was confirmed by successive royal charters, and in order to prevent unauthorized competition the Cornbury charter also granted to the city of New York all the unappropriated land between high and low water mark on the Long Island side, with power to 1 Mrs. Lamb, History of the City of New York, i, 86.

Stiles, History of the City of Brooklyn, iii, 507.