MONET AND LABOR. 187 



currency was created. It was the interest that was 

 paid upon the labor fund that went at once into cir- 

 culation and created the great body of trade of that 

 period. When a large part of ^this labor fund went 

 out of use there was a sudden stoppage of interest on 

 that portion, with an equal lessening in the amount 

 of trade, and reduction in the amount of consumption 

 and demand for reproduction. These great industrial 

 events, the most notable ever witnessed by any coun- 

 try, in any age, our present political economists have 

 not been able to see nor to understand. What caused 

 the great demand for reproduction at that period ; 

 how the great consumption was sustained, and from 

 whence came the support of the enormous domestic 

 trade, were matters by them unknown or unconsid- 

 ered ; and when calamity came they were equally 

 ignorant of the cause. They have yet to learn the 

 great economic fact that it is the labor fund that feeds 

 and sustains all other funds ; that without that fund 

 there can be no other. That every consumer is an 

 economic mint that converts the products of labor 

 into the gold that enriches society, and the amount 

 of such conversion, or coinage, is in exact ratio w.ith 

 the number and capacity of the mints at work. The 

 large and active employment of the labor fund of the 

 nation at that time gave us our great trade and in- 

 dustrial prosperity. It was that that made labor val- 

 uable and caused it to command good interest, as does 

 the active demand and use of the money fund give it 

 value and increase the rate of its interest. 



Neither do our wise economists see that immedi- 

 ately after the close of the war we were suddenly 



