An Example of Communal Currency E-Book

Harris

• Herausgeber: Science & Technology Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 87

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

An Example of Communal Currency: The Facts About the Guernsey Market House is a detailed historical account that explores the unique economic experiment undertaken by the island of Guernsey in the early 19th century. Faced with financial hardship and a deteriorating public infrastructure, the local government of Guernsey devised an innovative solution: the issuance of communal currency in the form of interest-free notes to fund the construction of the Market House and other public works. This book meticulously documents the circumstances that led to the adoption of this system, the practical steps taken by the States of Guernsey, and the remarkable results achieved, including economic revitalization, increased employment, and improved public amenities. Drawing on official records, correspondence, and contemporary reports, the book provides a comprehensive narrative of how the Guernsey Market House currency operated outside the conventional banking system, bypassing the need for external loans and avoiding the burden of interest payments. It highlights the transparency, accountability, and community involvement that characterized the project, as well as the challenges and opposition faced from vested interests. The author presents the Guernsey experiment as a compelling case study in alternative monetary policy, demonstrating how local initiative and communal trust can address pressing social and economic needs. Rich in historical detail and economic insight, An Example of Communal Currency not only chronicles a fascinating episode in monetary history but also raises important questions about the nature of money, the role of government in economic life, and the potential for community-based solutions to financial crises. The book serves as both a valuable resource for students of economics and history and an inspiring example for modern readers interested in sustainable and equitable approaches to public finance.

Leseprobe

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

AN EXAMPLE OF COMMUNAL CURRENCY

J. THEODORE HARRIS, B.A.

With a Preface by SIDNEY WEBB, LL.B.

1/- NET

LONDON P. S. KING & SON ORCHARD HOUSE, WESTMINSTER 1911

PEOPLE'S BANKS

A RECORD OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SUCCESS By H. W. WOLFF

LONDON: P. S. KING & SON ORCHARD HOUSE, WESTMINSTER

AN EXAMPLE OF COMMUNAL CURRENCY

AN EXAMPLE OF COMMUNAL CURRENCY:

THE FACTS ABOUT THE GUERNSEY MARKET HOUSE

COMPILED FROM ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS BY

THEODORE HARRIS, B.A.

With a Preface by SIDNEY WEBB, LL.B.

LONDON P. S. KING & SON ORCHARD HOUSE, WESTMINSTER 1911

CONTENTS

PREFACE

AN EXAMPLE OF COMMUNAL CURRENCY

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I CONSTITUTION OF GUERNSEY.

CHAPTER II THE SECURITY OF THE NOTES

CHAPTER III MUNICIPAL ENTERPRISE—THE ISSUE OF NOTES

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER IV THE UTILITY OF THE NOTES

CHAPTER V FIRST RUMBLINGS OF OPPOSITION

CHAPTER VI THE REPLY OF THE STATES

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VII THE CRISIS

CHAPTER VIII THE END

CONCLUSION

APPENDIX

STUDIES IN ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

EDITED BY THE

DIRECTOR OF THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

100 YEARS AGO

TO-DAY The Co-operative Brotherhood Trust, Ltd.,

WORKS BY HENRY W. WOLFF Co-operative Banking

LONDON: P. S. KING & SON ORCHARD HOUSE, WESTMINSTER

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LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

AN EXAMPLE OF COMMUNAL CURRENCY

By

J. THEODORE HARRIS, B.A.

With a Preface by SIDNEY WEBB, LL.B.

1/- NET

LONDON P. S. KING & SON ORCHARD HOUSE, WESTMINSTER 1911

PEOPLE'S BANKS

A RECORD OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SUCCESS By H. W. WOLFF

Third Edition, Newly Revised and EnlargedDemy 8vo, Cloth, 600 pp.6s.net

The Two Aspects of the Question, Credit to Agriculture, The "Credit Associations" of Schulze-Delitzsch, Raiffeisen Village Banks, Adaptations, "Assisted" Co-operative Credit, Co-operative Credit in Austria and Hungary, The "Banche Popolari" Italy, The "Casse Rurali" of Italy, Co-operative Credit in Belgium, Co-operative Credit in Switzerland, Co-operative Credit in France, Offshoots and Congeners, Co-operative Credit in India, Conclusion.

"We may confidently refer those who desire information on the point to the book with which Mr. Wolff has provided us. It will be a most useful thing if it is widely read, and the lessons which it contains are put in practice."—Athenæum.

"The book is the most systematic and intelligent account of these institutions which has been published."—Banker's Magazine (NewYork).

"It is the most complete book on the subject."—Mr. G. N. Pierson, late Dutch Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.

"There was manifest need of just such a book.... A mine of valuable information."—Review of Reviews.

"This is an excellent book in every way, and thoroughly deserves the careful attention of all who are concerned for the welfare of the people."—Economic Review.

LONDON: P. S. KING & SON ORCHARD HOUSE, WESTMINSTER

STUDIES IN ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

Edited by the Hon. W. PEMBER REEVES, Director of the London School of Economics

No. 21 in the Series of Monographs by Writers connected with the London School of Economics and Political Science

AN EXAMPLE OF COMMUNAL CURRENCY

AN EXAMPLE OF COMMUNAL CURRENCY:

THE FACTS ABOUT THE GUERNSEY MARKET HOUSE

COMPILED FROM ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS BY

THEODORE HARRIS, B.A.

With a Preface by SIDNEY WEBB, LL.B.

LONDON P. S. KING & SON ORCHARD HOUSE, WESTMINSTER 1911

CONTENTS

    PAGE   Preface vii   Introduction 1 CHAP.     I. Constitution of Guernsey 4 II. The Security of the Notes 6 III. Municipal Enterprise—The Issue of the Notes 9 IV. The Utility of tne Notes 20 V. First Rumblings of Opposition 25 VI. The Reply of the States 30 VII. The Crisis 45 VIII. The End 55   Conclusion 59   Appendix 61

PREFACE

Those who during the past thirty or forty years have frequented working men's clubs or other centres of discussion in which, here and there, an Owenite survivor or a Chartist veteran was to be found, will often have heard of the Guernsey Market House. Here, it would be explained, was a building provided by the Guernsey community for its own uses, without borrowing, without any toll of interest, and, indeed, without cost. To many a humble disputant the Guernsey Market House seemed, in some mysterious way, to have been exempt from that servitude to previously accumulated capital in which the whole creation groaneth and travaileth. By the simple expedient of paying for the work in Government notes—issued to the purveyors of material, the master-workmen and the operatives, accepted as currency throughout the island, and eventually redeemed out of the annual market revenues—all tribute to the capitalist was avoided. In face of this successful experiment, the fact that we, in England, continued to raise loans and subject ourselves to "drag at each remove a lengthening chain" of interest on public debt, often seemed so perplexingly foolish as to be inexplicable, except as the outcome of some deep-laid plot of "the money power."

When first I heard of this Guernsey Market House, as in some mysterious way exempted from the common lot, I was curious to enquire what transaction had, in fact, taken place in an island which was, after all, not so far removed in space or time from the Lombard Street that I knew. In all the writings of the economists (for which my estimate was at that time, as indeed it is now, such as I could not easily put into appropriate words), I found no mention of this Phœnix among market-houses. I fear that, too hastily, I dismissed the story as mythical.

Now Mr. J. Theodore Harris—having, I suspect, a warmer feeling for the incident than he has allowed to appear in these scientific pages—has done what perhaps I or some other economic student of the eighties or nineties ought to have done, namely, gone to Guernsey to dig up, out of the official records, the incident as it actually occurred. What is interesting is that he has found that the myth of the veteran Owenite or Chartist is, in all essentials, confirmed by the documents. The story is true. The Guernsey Market House was built without a loan and without the payment of interest.

It does not follow, however, that it was any more built without the aid of capital, than was St. Paul's Cathedral or the Manchester Ship Canal. Mr. Harris, contenting himself with the austerely exact record drawn from the documents, does not indulge in any speculative hypothesis as to who provided the capital, or who bore the burden that would otherwise have been interest. Let me use the fuller privilege of the preface-writer, and supply some hypothetical elucidations.

What the Guernsey community did was that which nearly every community has done at one time or another, namely, issue paper money. The part of the story that we do not know is (a) what thereupon happened to the aggregate amount of "currency" of all kinds then in circulation within the island, in relation to the work which that currency had to do; (b) what happened to the prices of commodities.

It may well have been that the issue of paper money was promptly followed by some shipments of metallic money to England or France—perhaps even in payment for imported materials for the market house—so that the aggregate amount of "currency" in the island was not in fact increased. Accordingly, no change of prices may have taken place. In such a case, Guernsey would merely have substituted paper for gold in its currency. The gold-capital heretofore in use as currency, and there, of course, yielding no capitalist any toll of interest, would, in effect, have been borrowed to expend upon the building of the Market House. And, as paper money probably served the purposes of the island every bit as well as gold, nobody was any the worse. By giving up the needless extravagance of using gold coins as counters, and by taking to paper counters instead, Guernsey really got its Market House without cost. The same resource is open to any community already possessing a gold currency, and becoming civilised and self-restrained and sensible enough to arrange to do without gold counters in its internal trade. But Guernsey could not have gone on equipping itself with endless municipal buildings as out of a bottomless purse. The resource is a limited one. This is a trick which can only be played once. When the gold has once been withdrawn from the currency, and diverted to another use, there is no more left with which to repeat the apparent miracle.

On the other hand, there may easily have been no special shipments of metallic money from the island, and the aggregate "currency" may have been increased, in relation to the work that it had to do, by the amount of the note issue. In that case, the economist would, for reasons into which I have