WOOD AS CURRENCY

Hokitika Guardian, 2 March 1933, Page 8

WOOD AS CURRENCY

ADOPTION IN .29 U S. STATES.

PLAN AVORKjS SATISFACTORILY

1 lUie use of wood tokens for money, which started a year ago in a small town: on the Pacific Coast, lias now extended, to 29 States. This new .form cf currency has neither legal backing nor government guarantee, says the New York correspondent of the Herald, but it is working satisfactorily. Scrip money is. in use in only one town in Oanacbv—Raymond, Alberta—where its success in the, past six .months has led united farmers of Alberta to uroe its general use on the Government of that province. , , Associated with the new form of currency, .and- also developing rapidly, is trade, by barter, the oldest marketing mjethod, in, the world. The plumber, suffering, from toothache, fixes the leak ip. the,.-dentist’s, bath. ... The . Middle West- fanner deposits a sack of wheat in the- theatre box office as lie goes in to sep ,the “movies” with his family. The . second stage of this process, is already under way—the organised barter exchange, under the title of Natural- Development Association, whose, members foreswear profit. Wooden money ,is in many forms. The most -popular a® circular strips of three-ply,” shaped' to ,-the size of coins, and .in denominations up to a dollar,. Sometimes “paper” is used, up to ten dollars. The system. is most workable in email towns, where counterfeiting is easily detected. The coins Are printed at a central bureau land distributed. to unemployed of good character, or fpr ,buying food, from farmer,?, or for loans'to business men,. Farmers and, tradesmen pay their employees with it. .The.economist- of Yale, Professor Trying Fisher, lias a-plan to redeem wood money by affixing a .two-,cent stamp each week, which would redeem one dollar, in a year, the stamps being sold for that object.* Wood money -has tire, virtue of rapid 1 circulation, nod. dispenses with 'the need for the traditional '■family stocking.