The advocate., 1895-08-14

0COp do yUu AOUh at IL, S6S uOW Iue
contraction Of the currency, beginning
in 1866, increased the failures. Follow
it now along down the years to 1894
and note its rayages as demonstration
and bank credit, with its terrible tax
on the people, were substituted for real
money.
Defending Banking System.
Mr.. HOrr-I must return to the ques-
tion of banks. To man accustomed to
doing business at the present time the
present methods Of conducting COM
mercial transactions are readily under
stood, That the quantity Of gold in the
world has not increased as fast as the
business Of the world has increased I
admit. But 1t does not take as much
standard money to do the same amount
Of business to-day as 1t formerly did.
Human ingenuity has devised methods
80 that one hundred dollars in gold will
do the same work that more than two
thousand dollars used to do. Hence Mr..
Harvey's contention that the quantity
Of the standard money alone determines
It's value ia incorrect. This increased
power Of gold which enables one dollar
to do the work that twenty or more
dollars used to do diminishes the actual
demand for the metal itself, and hence
prevents the burden he talks so much
about being anything like in proportion
to the amount Of the business done in
the world. Ninety-five per cent Of the
entire business Of this country Is done
without the exchange Of dollar of cur
rency. But 1t is all done on gold basis,
with a gold measure for value. While
the gold Is the measure Of value the
business Is done by using all kinds Of
credit as a substitute for the money
itself. It would be correct to say that,
all other things being equal, the guam
tity of water in running stream would
measure its value as power to be used
to aid man in the production of COM
mOdities. Yet the same quantity of
water turning an old fashioned under
shot wheel will not compare in its bene-
fits with the power obtained from the
same quantity Of water when mills are
located along the bank of the stream at
successive falls, and the same water is
used over and over again with turbine
wheels, which take the place of the
undershOt, and thus increase the power
in every mill, obtained from using the
same water. Thus it is that the work
which can be done with the same
amount of gold is enormously increased
by our new methods of bookkeeping and
banking. But / now come to
the keynote of Brother Harvey's
entire system. He bases his new
philosophy entirely upon the the
ory that the people of the world
are mostly in debt You won't deny that
(turning to Mr.. Harvey.) 1t does not oc-
cur to him that the debtors and credit
Ors, when you speak of sums of indebt-
edness, are always precisely the same.
But the number of the debtors and cred
itors differ very greatly in all civilized
and unciVilized countries. His whole
method seems to be to prove that every
body is in debt, and that the legislation
of the world should all be directed so
as to relieve the debtor.
just Like a Mill Stream.
Mr.. HarVey-Mr Horr compares our
money to stream Of water, and to the
utilization of that water in the manner
in which he illustrates it, l want to
make another comparison to put along
side Mr.. Horr's illustration: Money is a
stream. Suppose that along that stream
manufactures had been erected, and all
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