And Pole Baker rode to the thicket, where he had hidden his bag of cornmeal that morning, and took it home.
(To be continued.)
A Phase of the Money Problem Bankers Dare Not Discuss
BY ALBERT GRIFFIN
Author of “The Keynote: Substitute Honest Money for Fictitious Credit,” “The Hocus Pocus Money Boon”
BECAUSE of limited space, this paper contains little more than principles, facts and conclusions, without argument—and the subject is considered from the practical man’s standpoint rather than that of the theorizer. The one monetary proposition to which all schools agree is that “money is the medium of exchange.” To be used as such is its one and only universally admitted purpose—and no other characteristic is essential. No matter of what it consists, whatever is willingly used by people as their medium of exchange is money, and should be so recognized by everyone—but unfortunately, the greater part of it is not.
There is honest money and dishonest money. None is strictly honest that is not as good as the best—for exchange purposes. Ideal money has the same exchange value at all times, and everywhere—and the best money is that which is nearest the ideal. Without discussing what it should consist of, I hold that the material ought to be more substantial than a banker’s “confidence” that he will always be able to pay the most of his debts with mere debits and credits. As business cannot be done without money, and as each person needs enough of it to enable him to exchange his services and products for the services and products of others, it goes without saying that there ought to be enough to supply each and all liberally—and that no man, or set of men, should be allowed to affect materially this supply for selfish purposes.
To most people, the soundness of the “quantitative theory” of money is self-evident. Concisely stated, it is that, whenever the quantity of money in circulation increases faster than the exchanges to be made with it, commodities tend to rise in price—and vice versa—which is but the application to money of the inexorable law of supply and demand. While the soundness of this theory is generally admitted, every business man knows that sometimes facts seem to disprove it. In 1890, when the failure of Baring Brothers so nearly precipitated a panic throughout this country, the quantity of visible money in circulation was increasing; and the same fact was true in April, 1893, when the proceedings agreed upon at the conference between Secretary Carlisle and prominent New York bankers precipitated a fearful panic on the next business day—and yet, in both of these cases, the apparent conflict resulted from the suppression of a part of the facts.
Now for the explanation: In comparing the size or weight of two masses the whole of each must be contrasted with the whole of the other, and in comparing two actively operating forces all of the factors of each must be considered together, without regard to names. But, strange to say, three-fourths of what is being used and paid for as money, and which really does the work of money, and does nothing else, is denied the right of being called money by some doctrinaires—and also by bankers, when talking to the public. Although between May 1 and October 1, 1903, the volume of metallic and paper money actually increased, this something which had been doing the work of money was contracted $500,000,000 in New York City alone—but as it was not called money its relation to the results was not generally recognized.