IHTLTJENCE OF EECENT GOLD DISCOTEEIES ON PRICES. 431 



different views : while many see in the consequences of the gold dis- 

 coveries nothing but unmixed good ; a few, including among their 

 number the ingenious and acute De Quincey, look more than doubt- 

 fully to tbe future, and seem disposed to believe that it had been better 

 for the world if the gold nuggets had remained for ever buried in 

 the bowels of the earth. 



Into the large and tempting field of enquiry which the discussion 

 of the probable moral and social results of the modern gold discoveries 

 would carry us, it is not my design to enter. I shall confine myself 

 exclusively to the economic bearings of the discoveries ; and con- 

 sider only the effect of those discoveries on the prices of commodi- 

 ties. This indeed is only one (doubtless the most important,) of 

 the many interesting phases which the subject presents, considered in 

 an economic point of view. 



Strange as it may appear, this subject, although practical and im- 

 portant, has not hitherto received any considerable share of public 

 attention, or been discussed on general principles and with reference 

 to the admitted truths of Political Economy.* 



To connect the gold discoveries and high prices together as cause 

 and effect, and to indicate the process by which the rise in prices has 

 been brought about, as well as the probable permanency of their pre- 

 sent level, are the principal objects of the present paper. 



It can hardly, I conceive, be necessary to adduce elaborate 

 statistics to establish the fact assumed as the ground work of my 

 remarks — that the general level of prices on this continent and in 

 Great Britain as well as in California and Australia has, within the 

 last six or eight years, been considerably raised. 



The extraordinary advancement of tbe prices of the necessaries of 

 life, and of the wages of labour, in the tAvo countries last mentioned, 

 immediately after the first discovery of their mineral treasures, is yet 

 fresh in the recollection of us all. The influence of the golden tide, 

 which then began to set in from those remote lands to Great Britain 

 and the States, soon also made itself apparent in the latter countries. 



During the last four years the Congress of the United States, in 

 consequence of the admitted depreciation of the value of money 

 throughout the Union, was compelled to raise, from 25 to 40 per 

 cent, the salaries of the officers and servants of the Government. 

 In England in 1854, the rise of wages and prices according to Mc- 



• Sterling's Work on ^ Gold Discoveries," to which frequenl iubse- 



quent pur; . of this paper, is certainly an exception to this remark— I may add that I had not 

 seen this work until a largo portion of this article had been written. 



