The herald., 1895-05-30

quality as well as an increase in the
quantity of money. and of course prices
would go up after the debris of the panic
that would ensue had been cleared away.
They would oup in dollars and cents be-
cause the money rendered in exchange
for the property would not be as valu-
able as the former medium of pur-
chase. And the people who would
be hurt in this transition of price
from a low to a high plane would
be those whose credits, whether they bs
in the form of wages, bank Commercial
or savings) accounts, notes, or insurance
policies, would be payable in the kind of
money that suited their debtors. And
this would mean that the very people for
whom the silverites express such solicit
tude, the people who do the work of the
country. and who woul have no specific
contracts regarding the Kind OF money
their earnings, their bank deposits. their
small notes and their insurance losses and
indemnities should be paid in. would
be compelled to accept dollar with half
the buying power of the dollar they had
earned, deposited, loaned OF insured for.
as tue ease ullRIt Ues UT, as we nave IN
tim ated, a change of the manner of get
ting the money into circulation might
affect prices. If the money were distrib-
uted at so much per capita among the
people, Its purchasing power would be
deprecated and that depreciation would
be expressed in an enhancement of
prices. Or if loaned on commodities by
the government. it would set value on
those con. m odities and thus affect their
price. But all increase in money of the
same quality as that existing. and got
ten into the channels of trade in the
same way as before. never did ard never
will by and of itself increase CT hold up
the prices of property. Ultimately the
real prices of commodities are determined
by the inexorable law of supply and
demand and the whole tendency and
avowed purpose of the ingenuity and
science of civilization has been to cheaper
and facilitate production in almost every
conceivable product of labor the result
is that the supply has exceeded the de-
mand III nearly all the staple lines of
commodities and consequently prices have
lowered. rhe genius of the inventor
has furnished the world in the last
twenty-five years with more devices for
cheapening production than it inherited
in the two hundred years preceding.
These labor saving implem ents. machines
and methods have invaded every field of
human activity. Agriculture. manufacture
ing, transportation and exchange have
witnessed the diminishment of the cost
of producing things and getting things,
through the abolition OF abor.
1t is instantly occurring that substan-
ces at one time utilized little or not at all
are found to possess qualities or advant-
ages hitherto unknown, and they displace
partially or wholly other articles of con-
sumption, and the latter go down in
the proportion that they are discaraed. If
the promise that oil produced here can
be more advantageously used by railroad
and manufacturing institutions than Goa
is ade good in the PRACTICAL tests oil
will be substituted and coal will go down
in price just in the degree that it is dis
pensed with. And yet doubtless the err
ing silverite would ascribe the shrinkage
to 'demonetlzation or ''the contraction
of the currency"
The ambition of man has been 10 make
things easier to get by lessening the
amount of labor required to produce them,
and the success of his efforts is expressed
in the increased purchasing power of the
dollar. or whatever may be the unit of
| value of his monetary system. This unit
| of value stands for results, it is his counter
! in the work of exchange, and when he
I finds that it will buy more today of the
| things he needs than it would yesterday, he
knows that he has progressed: that in the
! development of the earth's resources he
has triumphed by cheapening production,
| and ne has done this as he always will do
| it, regardless of the volume or character
of tue money of the world. The latter has
been his tool of exchange. but not his
tool of production.
1t is undoubtedly true that millions of
natures offspring are the involuntary
victims OF want and misery while others
are in the vouptuous enjoyment OF SUI
perfluty of riches. 1t is a lamentable
condition and an unpleasant commentary
on the civilization we call great. But t
is condition that exists because of rea-
son independent of and entirely uncon-
nected with the money question, or the
controversy of standards.
THE OUTRAGEOUS INCREASE OF GOLD