178 HISTORY OF THE WHEEL AND ALLIANCE, 



products of the whole year having been harvested, they 

 are placed 011 the market to buy money. The amount of 

 money necessary to supply this demand is equal to many 

 times the actual amount in circulation. Nevertheless the 

 class that controls the volume of the circulating medium 

 desire to purchase these agricultural products for specula- 

 lative purposes, so they reduce the volume of money by 

 hoarding, in the face of the augumented demand, and 

 thereby advance the exchangeable value of the then inad- 

 equate volume of money, which is equivalent to reducing 

 the price of the agricultural products. True, agricultur- 

 alists should hold their products and not sell at these 

 ruinously low prices. And no doubt they would if they 

 could, but to prevent that, practically all debts, taxes and 

 interest are made to mature at that time, and they being 

 forced to have money at a certain season when they have 

 the product of their labor to sell, the power of money to 

 oppress by its scarcity is applied until it makes them turn 

 loose their products so low that their labor expended does 

 not average them fifty cents per day. This illustrates the 

 power of money to oppress; the remedy, as before, lies in 

 removing the fulcrum power the inflexible Government 

 issue and supplying a Government issue, the volume of 

 which shall be increased to correspond with the actual addition 

 to the wealth of the nation presented by agriculture at har- 

 vest time, and diminished as such agricultural products are 

 consumed. Such a flexibility of volume would guarantee 

 a stability of price based on cost of production which 

 would be compelled to reckon the pay for agricultural 

 labor at the same rates as other employment. Such flexi- 

 bility would rob money of its most potent power the 

 power to oppress and place a premium on productive 

 effort. But how may so desirable a result be secured? Let 

 us see. By applying the same principles now in force in 

 the monetary system of the United States with only a slight 



