100 



BULIiETIN OP THE 



as a rule, though the coins show a tendency to circulate mode- 

 rately. It is not probable, however, that more than 40,000,000 

 of them could be kept in voluntary circulation, and that number 

 seems very large. 



The coaimon belief which seems to pervade the minds of the 

 advocates of the present silver policy is, that in the first place we 

 need an enormous amount of metallic money in this country, and 

 in the second place that the gold supply is insufficient to meet 

 alone this demand for metallic money without increasing greatly 

 its price and correspondingly disturbing all values. 



The natural laws governing the use of money seem at first to 

 be highly paradoxical. It is a well known fact in the history of 

 money, that the more abundant the supply the greater is the 

 complaint of scarcity. This complaint has risen again and again, 

 and has too frequently resulted in the application of what seemed 

 at first the normal remedy — an issue of more money by the Gov- 

 ernment — but which proved to be a source of aggravation, mak- 

 ing money scarcer than ever and in greater demand. It was so 

 in the old colonial times, and it has been so in this country ever 

 since. The same experience has been repeatedly observed in 

 Europe, where the difficulty is well understood and always 

 treated with the appropriate remedy whenever it shows a ten- 

 dency to manifest itself, which is very seldom. The explanation 

 is not difficult. A little examination shows that the complaint 

 has always arisen in poorer countries and regions or States less 

 advanced in material wealth and improvements, and the complaint 

 has been directed against richer neighbors, who have invariably 

 been accused of prosecuting a policy designed to monopolize 

 money at the expense of poorer people. In our own country 

 there is and alvt^ays has been unquestionably a dearth of money 

 in the West and South and a plethora in the Eastern and Middle 

 States. The want of more money in the West and South is prob- 

 ably a real want. The cause is that money goes where goods 

 are for sale and leaves a country where nothing is to be bought. 

 Once a year for a space of about two months the great harvests 

 of the West and the cotton crop of the South are ready for the 

 market, and forthwith the westward and southward bound trains 

 are laden with money from the Eastern and Middle State banks, 

 and it is scattered broadcast over a vast expanse of country. 

 But within a month it is back in the vaults it came from, and for 

 ten long dreary months the people of those regions are impecuni- 

 ous again. The money realized for a year's farming has gone to 

 pay debts or the annual interest on mortgages and to buy a 

 year's outfit of the necessaries of life. In short, money goes 

 where there are commodities to be bought. The fancy that the 

 ten months' scarcity can be relieved by increasing the total vol- 

 ume of currency is utterly absurd. What have the impecunious 

 classes to give in exchange for it? or what would they have to 

 sell which they have not already ? and how are they to obtain 



