Professor Jevons, in "Money and the Mechanism of Exchange," in the chapter on "A Tabular Standard of Value," inquires whether it is not possible to have a standard based on a large number of commodities,--a "multiple legal tender," as he terms it,--and concludes that the plan would resolve itself into those severally proposed by Joseph Lowe in 1822, and, independently, by G. Poulett Scrope in 1833, and by G. R. Porter in 1838. These plans were practically alike. Recognizing the fluctuations of money value, and the injury done especially to long-time debts thereby, they proposed that tables be prepared showing the variations from year to year of the prices of the principal commodities, taking into account, also, the amounts sold. These tables were to be used for reference, to ascertain in what degree a money contract must be varied so as to make the purchasing power of the money returned equal to that loaned. The plans seem to have been only suggestions, and the details not worked out. Professor Jevons speaks favourably of them, as perfectly sound in principle, and the difficulties in the way as not considerable. He suggests a method by which the average prices of the commodities could be computed, and closes with the statement: "Such a standard would add a wholly new degree of stability to social relations, securing the fixed incomes of individuals and public institutions from the depreciation which they have often suffered. Speculation, too, based upon the frequent oscillations of prices which take place in the present state of commerce, would be to a certain extent discouraged. The calculations of merchants would be less frequently frustrated by causes beyond their own control, and many bankruptcies would be prevented. Periodical collapses of credit would no doubt recur from time to time, but the intensity of the crisis would be mitigated, because, as prices fell, the liabilities of debtors would decrease approximately in the same ratio."
Prof. F. A. Walker, referring to these schemes, and to similar ones proposed by Count Soden and by Professor Roscher in Germany, criticises them as too cumbersome for general use, but thinks they might be advantageously employed for long-time contracts. The criticism is evidently just; not only are the plans too cumbersome, but they only partially accomplish what is needed. They contain, however, the germ of a plan which it is believed would be both more effective and less open to the criticism mentioned. Long and short time contracts, and cash transactions, are too intimately connected to make it possible in practice to use different and varying standards for each.