First Aspiring Political Economist. It is all very well to lay down the law in that fashion, but it will not dispose of facts. You may quote Giffen, or Levin, or anyone you like, but they will not be able to do away with the circumstance, that prices are regulated by the quantity of money in circulation (with a little hesitation); at least, that is what I understand the other side to maintain.
Second Aspiring Political Economist. Sheer nonsense. How does the quantity of money you possess affect the price you pay for a commodity? The fact of your having twenty sovereigns in your purse won't make your butcher charge you an extra halfpenny a pound for a leg of mutton! That must be clear to any fool!
First Aspiring Political Economist. But you don't understand. It's numbers that do it. They mean, if thirty millions of people, each have twenty sovereigns a-piece in their purses (doubtfully), then, I suppose, the butchers would raise the price of their meat. At least, that's what I fancy they imply when they talk of an "artificial currency" raising prices (with some vagueness), or is it "artificial prices" creating an increased currency. I couldn't quite follow them in this. But I am sure, whichever of the two views was expressed by M. Emile de Laveleye, that one had, no doubt, a great deal of sound argument to back it.
Third Aspiring Political Economist. I think you miss the point. Take an illustration. Say you arrive at a cannibal island with ten thousand complete sets of evening dress clothes, and that another ship, just before the arrival of yours, has taken the last ten-pound-note off the island, how, supposing there was to be a native rush to obtain one of your suits, would the absence of any money to pay for them affect their market value? I mayn't have got it quite correctly, but this, or something like it, is one of the cases that Giffen brings forward to prove his point. The matter, however, appears to me to be a little complicated.
Second Aspiring Political Economist. Not in the least. It proves the humbug of the Bimetallic position up to the hilt. Of course, you must assume, that the cannibals desire to dress in evening clothes. I confess that has to be considered, and then the question lies in a nutshell. There can't be two opinions about it.
First Aspiring Political Economist. Well, to me, though, of course, I am willing to admit there may be something in it, I can't say that the matter is, at first sight, convincingly clear. (Candidly.) My chief difficulty is, I confess, to arrive at any definite conclusion with myself, as to what "Bimetallism" really means, and what it does not; and I own I feel still vague as to the two questions of the influence of the quantity of money on prices, or the price of a commodity on the value of money respectively, and, though I carefully read all that appears in the daily papers on the subject, I am compelled to own that I do not seem to be nearer a solution of the perplexing difficulty. However, it is, no doubt, a highly absorbing, if not a very useful, subject for investigation.
[Left investigating it as Curtain falls.
