This is a report on the references you gave me:

Henry Meulen, Free Banking, 1934

He quotes approvingly from Whittick, Value and an Invariable Unit of Value (Lippincott 1896), page 244, to wit:

"Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?" A money system could be built upon this starting point. If two sparrows are sold for a farthing, prices of all commodities whose values were determinable could be expressed in farthings. The farthing might be a myth, and yet from it the proportions of all wealth might be determined. How absurd it would be to attach the sparrows in perpetuity to the farthing.

This conforms to the concept of abstract value, and recognizes that only precedent and practice are required to establish a monetary unit. Yet Meulen denies this by attacking "the sparrows in perpetuity to the farthing", when, on page 238, he says,

Few of the millions of people who exchange ordinary commodities actually desire gold; yet, when gold becomes cheaper, prices of all goods must increase, to the confusion of all debt contracts.

This is the theory that the raising or lowering of the price of gold affects all prices—a theory that was disproved by the policies of Roosevelt. It does not seem that Meulen has the abstract value concept.

Alfred B. Westrop, The New Philosophy of Money, 1915

He also accepts the theory of the influence of the "standard" commodity over all commodities, in these words, page 93:

The purchasing power of "standard" money is affected by the rise or fall in the market value of the "standard" commodity hence this purchasing power must vary.

His book does not live up to its title, as it merely proposes a mutual banking plan within the existing philosophy and the existing unit.

Arthur Kitson, A Scientific Solution of the Money Question, 1894

I am delighted to find myself in full concurrence with him on the basis for a monetary unit. On page 135, he says:

The language of commodities was created as soon as their relationship was ascertained in terms of the quantities (either by weight or volume) of any one commodity, whether gold, silver, wheat, or whatnot; and if from that instant prices had been reckoned without returning to the standard commodity for successive comparisons and valuations, we should have had an absolute method by which the variations in prices of each and every commodity would have been correctly registered, including the variations in the standard commodity itself. A commodity can only be considered a standard at one particular instant.

I have likened the starting of a unit to the keynote of an orchestration—to be lost and forgotten the moment the play of pricing has begun.

Kitson and Whittick, as quoted above by Meulen, are the only writers I know of who have expressed the same idea that I have expressed, and I thank you for leading me to them.

I also found in Kitson's book passages worth copying in support of private enterprise money. Beginning at page 276, he first quotes Spencer thus:

"So constantly have currency and government been associated," says Herbert Spencer, "so universal has been the control exercised by law givers over monetary systems, so completely have men come to regard this control as a matter of course, that scarcely anyone seems to inquire what would result were it abolished. Perhaps in no case is the necessity of state superintendence so generally assumed, and in no case will the denial of that necessity cause so much surprise.

"That laws interfering with currency cannot be enacted without the reversal of state duty, is obvious; for either to forbid the issue, or enforce the receipt of certain notes or coin in return for other things, is to infringe the right of exchange—is to prevent men making exchanges which they otherwise would have made, or is to oblige them to make exchanges which otherwise they would not have made."—Social Statics.

Then Kitson proceeds:

To the average man, a currency that has not the authority or stamp of government is inconceivable; and yet there is no good reason why communities should not create and control their own currency without the aid or intervention of governments, just as they incur debts or liabilities without such aid or intervention.

In the chapter on Credit, I showed first that the large proportion of the business of all commercial nations was done upon a credit basis; and second, that circulating credits constituted money in the strict scientific sense, and that whilst a large amount of personal credit was stationary, still a considerable proportion did circulate, and so performed all the functions of money. It therefore follows, that in spite of legislative acts, and in spite of the assertions of certain writers that "law and law alone creates money," the greatest volume of money is now created by the people themselves, without the aid or knowledge of governments. In fact, were it not for the power that individuals have of creating credit, the volume of the world's commercial transactions would be reduced to a mere fraction of what it is now. Whilst, therefore, as a matter of fact, the commercial world does create the greater portion of the world's currency, in form of bills of exchange, drafts, credit notes, etc., the effect of the legal tender act and governmental interference, is to force people to build credit upon an unstable, insecure basis. The entire volume of commercial currency is built upon that of the government, so far as domestic exchanges are concerned, and is liable at any time to be overturned by the manipulation of those in control of the government currency.

How anyone who is familiar with the history of the coinage and currency of Europe, or acquainted with the financial history of the United States during the past fifty years, can imagine that the control of currency is safer in the hands of the governments of these countries than in the hands of the people, is astounding.

A nation, whose currency is controlled by its legislators, is like a town built in the vicinity of a volcano. Its inhabitants never know at what period they may be enveloped in ruin.

Governments cannot exercise the function of controlling the currency without violating the one function by which their right to existence is generally recognized, viz, the administration of justice. The issuance of money must be free, in order that industry and commerce may be free; and commerce must be free in order that people may be free. Freedom to life necessitates freedom to maintain life, and this involves freedom of exchanges. Denial of free money is, therefore, a denial of freedom to life.

It is astounding to me that Kitson, after thinking so clearly and fundamentally on money, should have since lapsed into a political money reformer instead of devoting his life to promulgating private enterprise money.