5! 



jr. G. Langzi'orthy Taylor 



Artificially 

 level or un- 

 varying prices 

 cannot guaran- 

 tee profits and 

 hence prevent 

 crises. 



The interna- 

 tional tabular 

 standard is 

 the gold-ex- 

 change stand- 

 ard applied to 

 the tabular. 



tion. If he loses, he takes the blame cheerfully on himself. 

 Only in case of widespread disaster do scheme-makers obtain a 

 hearing. He does not like to feel that some official is continually 

 standing over him with a club to decide, apparently arbitrarily, 

 how much his property is to be scaled up or down. Injustice is 

 usually the result where officials attempt to interfere with the 

 metes and bounds that have been created by evolution and com- 

 petition. It is a mistake to suppose that an average correction of 

 price fluctuation can be worked out. which is destined exactly to 

 deal out justice through the whole business community. Exag- 

 gerated organic changes are a bad thing, undoubtedly, but the 

 cure by theoretical rule is apt to be disastrous. 



§ 22. Another argument advanced in favor of this proposed 

 standard is that crises are the result of fluctuation in prices, and, 

 if the latter can be eliminated, the former will be also. That 

 notion is a pure case of taking the symptom for the cause. If 

 there is speculation and enterprise, there always will be inflation 

 of some sort; if it can be apparently banished by superficial, 

 topical treatment, it is bound to break out in some other place ; if 

 it is removed by a lotion from the surface of the body, it will 

 gather internally ; if the amount of the circulating medium is 

 artificially regulated, the expansion will take place in deposits, for 

 no one has yet had the inspiration to regulate deposits. But why 

 be so anxious to suppress price fluctuations? They are among 

 the most healthful phenomena ; if not extreme, they are the 

 organic sign of prog-ress. Common sense shows that good times 

 and high prices go together, and low prices go with bad times. 

 Prices are a mere symptom of what is going on, and entire dis- 

 appearance of it would testify that the community was in a 

 state of economic coma. 



§ 22i. Another corollary of the tabular standard is the proposal 

 to apply to it the idea of the " gold-exchange standard " by in- 

 ternational agreement. The gold-exchange standard may be 

 stated as the practical measure to which American and English 

 colonial authorities and Mexico have resorted of keeping the 

 currency at par with that of gold countries by buying and selling 

 foreign exchange. Professor Irving Fisher would have the 



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