184 LAND AND LABOR. 



completely revolutionized. Germany has recently 

 greatly strengthened her finances, but her industries 

 are paralyzed. France suffers in her manufactures, 

 and her workmen are enduring the greatest destitu- 

 tion, but there have been no great financial changes. 

 Every nation and people on earth that have civilized 

 industries and commerce have been more or less af- 

 fected by the world's industrial revolution ; and to 

 the exact extent to which each country has been 

 affected by this revolution, is the amount of distress 

 in that coimtry. Ours is the only nation where there 

 have been changes in the money system, and financial 

 follies ; but in our industries we suffer in common 

 with the whole world, whether our money is hard or 

 soft, gold or greenbacks. 



The great industrial revolution is in the use of ma- 

 chinery mechanical forces in place of muscular 

 in general production. Money will not and can not 

 change the relations of machinery to muscle. The 

 increase of the volume of our money will not change 

 the ratio of the employment of these two forces ; 

 neither would the reduction of our money to one tenth 

 the present volume. Every one, whether possessed 

 of much or little, will make use of that force which is 

 most effective and of least cost. And so it should be. 



At the close of the war, in 1865, as is alleged by the 

 advocates of an increased volume of currency, there 

 was in circulation nearly $1,800,000,000 of circulat- 

 ing medium. During the previous four years all the 

 people in our country had been actively employed ; 

 the consumption of products had been enormous ; 

 the demand for reproduction had been in proportion, 



