Birmingham state herald., 1896-03-15

gument to show, as some uo, that the per capita circulation in Turkey Is only small proportion of that in France and that prices ii the two countries arc not widely variant. Money is a world sub stance and adjusts itself to the amount of business, End the method of doing it, In each country. Let the person smitten with this Turho- Frankish fancy answer the question whether, demand for goods remaining unchanged, prices would alter if suddenly tto amount of money in each country were multiplied by ten. To an swer "No" would Do foolish, and to answer "Yes'' Is to kill his argument.
 Cruelty of Monometallism.
 Thus, sir, attention is strongly drawn to the function of money as measure of value. Nearly all who discuss this gener- al subject from the standpoint of the gold monometallist treat of money almost wholly as a medium of exchange only, but they miss entirely tho philosophy of the question. The inequity and cruelty of the singlo gold standard lie principally in its operation as a measure of values and criterion of deferred payments.
 Now Mir. Chairman, after this some- . what inadequate and very nasty examina- tion of the way in which value arises and LII tuO WHy III WLiUi plioc afloos, piioo po- ing simply tho value of an article reckon ed in money and a comparison of tho worth of the material in the unit of mon- ey with the worth of tho article against which it is exchanged I como to the prop osition which Is made by those who are opposed to tho single gold standard.
 That proposition is that there has been and is going on an appreciaton-that is to say, a rise in value-in this standard of gold which tho major portion of tho com merical nations of the world has adopted In other words, sir, 1t Is affirmed that the quantity of all commodities on tho aver age required to buy given number of grains of gold has been and is increasing, and that from that fact thore follows train of woes from which the world has been suffering in an increasing measure ever since the mistake was made In 1873 and thereabouts of going to that standard. How shall VIC ascertain whether there has been this rise in valuep There Is only ono way, and that Is to examine the general prico level of commodities. When ono thing is used as a common denominator of all other things, to tell whether it rises or falls you must look at the average level of those other things and find whether they fall or rise, for the relations of the
 
 Now, sir, general law of this kind and ask the attention of tho house to this propostion-a general law of this kind as to tho course of prices is determi- nable only by very broad generalization from observed facts. The commercial world is a complex one. The causes that affect the rise and fall, tho demand and supply and tho cost of production of tho infinite variety of articles that make up the modern market are difficult of inyestt- gation A rise in the price of ono com modty may accompany fall Tn the prioo of another, as was shown by the gentle- man from North Dakota MT. Johnson the other day, who told us, as remember, that there was a time when hay went up as wheat and corn went down, though what that fact scientifically signifed is hidden in the inner consciousness of Brother Johnson. mean no disrespect, for know the gentleman from North Da- kota as q scholarly man of distinguished ability and entire honesty in his opinions. But say that whom you undertake to de- duce general law from the course, up or down, of two or three articles for two or three years you arc proceeding absolutely outside of the approved method of science, and generalization of that kind has no value whatever.
 Course of Prices.
 But, Mir. Chairman, the scientific world has determined a way of Investigating the general course of prices. It proceeds upon the selection of large number of com modities of such character as to indicate the essential condition of the market and extends over number of years. Thus special causes, whether of time or of prod uot, are largely neutralized, and general results are obtained having value as in- dcativo of the underlying law controlling tho movement of prices. This method of inquiry is by means of n system of "index numbers" Thus the price of each com modity chosen is averaged for certain number of years, and that average Is called 100. If. as is done by tho London Eoono- mist newspaper, 22 commodities be used the sum of those averages is, of course, 2,200. Then for any other year with which comparison is sought tho price of each commodity is ascertained and is set down at so many points above or below 100, according to the percentage Of its rise or fall, as the case may be. These are then added, and if the total exceeds 3, 200 prices gre higher than in the years used as the standard; if tho total is less than 2,20O, prices are lower. By dividing the
 
 pression Is obtained on the scale of 100, which is conveniently used in investiga- tion. Under normal conditions various causes make temporary fluctuations in the prices of different commodities, some ris' ing and others falling in tho same period, without special significance. But when, after allowing for all such variations and offsets, general prices-tho average of the whole market--have fallen then the con- clusion is unavoidable that some general cause has operated on all alike, and, as we have seen, such fall would mean an in- crease in the measure of values, a dollar that had grown larger, and which would require more of all commodities to buy 1t.
 The authoritative figures for Germany arc those of Dr. Adolf Soetbeer, famous economic writer es continued by Heinz, statistician for Hamburg They take as 100, or tho par for comparison, the ave- age prices from 1S47 to 1850 of 100 articles in the Hamburg market and IA of British export. In England two sets of data enjo@ great repute-those of the London Econo- mist and especially those of Augustus Sauerbeck of tho London Statistical socie- ty. The former are based on the prices of O tn ba