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those laws impossible ! Shall the doctrine of Malthus still soothe the 

 c^Dnscience and stifle the voice of manhood ? 



Yet it is not by appeals to humanity, nor by legal enactments 

 that we expect to succeed. It is not upon the valor or fury of an 

 armed mob — legal or otherwise — that we must stake the issue ; so 

 great a reform cannot rest upon so fickle a base, but upon the fact 

 that all reforms spring from an intelligent sense of wrong, or greater 

 economy in proposed methods. 



If we would reform labor, we must reform capital. We must 

 institute a most searching investigation into the subject of finance — 

 that main branch of economic science which has ever been used by 

 crafty and greedy men to acquire wealth and power at the expense of 

 useful people, and we must popularize correct notions in order that we 

 mav eliminate the vicious features that these men make use of, and 

 by which they accomplish their ends. 



That there is a profound sense of WTong in the present banking 

 system, will hardly be denied. That there is greater economy and 

 justice in the one we propose, it is my purpose to demonstrate. 



I hold it to be the duty of those who have arrived at any definite 

 conclusions on matters of pubhc economy, to make' known the result 

 of their research, and it is with a view of fulfilling this duty that this 

 work is published. 



It is now more than twelve years since my attention w^as first 

 called to this subject. During the period that has intervened, I have 

 devoted much time to its study, and I hope, succeeded in formulating 

 the correct principles of monetary science, and thus refute prevailing 

 erroneous and unsound doctrines maintained by money-lenders and 

 their associates who profit by existing institutions and systems. This 

 will aid us to understand the true nature of exchange, or, in other 

 words, what constitutes equity in the exchange of service or products ; 

 for in this inheres the whole secret of the labor problem, that, since 

 you cannot take something from nothing, and, since all things are 

 produced by lal)or, * what capital gains, labor loses. By what 

 methods and how to ren\edy it, is the purpose of this essay to explain. 



I shaj^omnience by cailing your attention to a preliminary ar- 

 gument i^H^erence to the various banking systems. First, let us 

 inquire int(^ne specie basis system 



* See definition of wealtli. 



