118 TWELFTH REPORT. 



Monthly, just out, asserts that sahiries actually fell QM% in Massa- 

 chusetts, from 1895 to 1905, which means a veiy large fall in real sal- 

 aries. 



As a means of preventing this rise and fall in real incomes — and so 

 in the cost of living— the adoption of the multiple standard has recently 

 been advocated by some writers of note. This would furnish an equit- 

 able solution, if it could be made to work in practice as it is conceived 

 in theory, which is highly improbable. The multiple standard is not 

 in use anywhere at the i)resent time, so far as I know, nor has it ever 

 been on an extensive scale. It is too much, therefore, to predicate its 

 practicability. Moreover, the world is committed, for the present, to 

 the gold standard, and, while it is by no means a prefect standard for 

 deferred pa3'lnents, we probably cannot do better than to continue it. 

 At any rate we could not change it if we would. It only remains for us, 

 then, to adjust ourselves, as best we may, to it. 



But how? So far as I know, no suggestion has yet been offered, ex- 

 cept to extend the principle of protection to gold. But legislation with 

 regard to gold would probably not be effective. Most likely it would 

 do harm rather than good. A partial remedy might be found in better 

 and freer banking laws, such as exist in some foreign countries. 



And then, too, if wages, salaries, interest and the like could be made 

 to respond more quickly to the changing value of the standard, gold, 

 a long step would be made toward the solution of either an increased 

 or diminished cost of living. It has seemed to me this might be ac- 

 complished by the ai>pointment of a body of economic exjierts of recog- 

 nized ability and character, who should determine by the science of 

 index numbers, whether prices have lowered or lifted and to what ex- 

 tent. These determinations might be made, perhaps twice a year, and 

 published in the daily press. If prices had greatly increased, as has 

 been the case recently, these reports would become subjects of discus- 

 sion in press and magazine; public opinion would be created in favor of 

 a demand for higher wages, salaries and other fixed incomes. This 

 should be especially effective in the adjustment of wages, and it is, after 

 all, the laboring i)€ople for whom we are most vitally concerned in the 

 problem of the high cost of living. 



Alma College, Mich., April 1910. 



