Yerington times. [volume] (Yerington, Nev.) 1907-1932, 1907-10-26


copper trade, it is necessary to go back
for long distance, and to begin with
cancellations of worldwide scope
The trouble i'll the copper trade is
merely local manifestation of disease
IRON which the entire civilized world is
suffering. The copper trade is iii bad
shape because money is tight, not only
III the United States, but i'll Europe as
well, and money is tight throughout the
world because there has been such an
unusually large supply of money during
the past ten years This may sound
paradox1cal, or even nonsensical, but it
is absolutely true. In the presidential
campaign OF 1896 the two great political
parties of America lined up OH either
side, one taking the qualitative the
other the quantitative theory of money.
Tie Republicans, who took the qualita-
tive side, were nearer right than the
Democrats, but neither party grasped all
ot the truth. Money is a commodity
differing from others III that it is the
sole commodity by which the values of
all other commodities are measured, yet
money is governed as any other COM
modify by the general laws that govern
the prices of all commodities
Money is of three kinds, which may
be termed credit money, token money
and real money. Credit money is com
posed of personal checks, bank drafts,
government notes and bank notes put
out by individual banks under govern
iiient sanction. Token money i'll all
countries having the gold standard, in
cludes the silver as well as the copper
coinage, the only difference between sill
yer and copper being that there is a
larger proportion of intrinsic value i'll the
silver than i'll the copper coinage. Real
money is gold, and gold only Ish.e
token money of the different govern
ments passes readily i'll all transactions,
because it is backed by the good fS;th of
the government emitting it, and is re-
deemable i'll gold, either directly or III
directly. The credit money of govern
ments, banks, corporations and individ-
.uals is valuable or valueless according to
whether it is or is not instantly redeem
able i'll gold, or other money forms pay
able i'll gold
The production of gold i'll the leading
auriferous districts of the globe is much
greater now than i'll any preceding
period of the worlds history This has
led not only to increases i'll the curren-
cies, but to immense increases III the
monetary gold reserves of practically all
civilized countries. Nothing is more
clearly proven in history, or in political
economy than that great increase of
money in any given country is followed
by the great stimulation of business, and
rising prices.
Like any other commodity, money be-
comes dear when it becomes scarce, and
grows cheap i'll proportion as it grows
common, hence bankers and writers on
finance and political economy make a
fundamental error i'll holding that the
price of money is the interest received
therefrom. This error is responsible for
no small part of the confusion existing
in the popular mind regarding higher
finance. The price of money is what it
will sell for, just as the price of house
is the sum for which it can be sold, and
not the charge made for its occupancy,
Beginning with the first large flow of
cold from the mines of the Rand i'll
4 South Africa, there has been tremend-
Gus increase in the production OF this
metal, on which rests the entire business
/ fabric of the world Gold production
suffered check during the Boer war,
but other producing districts con-
tinued increasing their outputs, and with
the resumption of work on a large scale
in the South African mines, the world :
supply of the metal that is our monetary
basis has grown To figures heretofore
considered impossible In consequence
of this increase, all civilized countries
which manage by one means or another
TO draw from the world supply OF golt
which, to all practical purposes, IS
common reservoir, have added greatly
to their holdings of gold, and the past
ten years have witnessed the period o.
greatest activity and industrial progress
1 ever known. 1t is not only the United
States that has made wonderful progress
f. in the past decade, though perhaps oui
progress has been more spectacular than
that of other countries, England, Ger
many and all of the other great nations,
and most of the lesser nations III the
worlds family, have witnessed rising
wages and rising prices, accompanied by
the inception OF vast industrial enter
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