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the currency controversy. It has been urged, for instance, 
that the employment of silver as currency in a fixed ratio 
with gold might theoretically result in such an infla^tion of 
prices that it would be necessary to employ a wheelbarrow 
in order to convey the money required for the purchase of 
a four-pound loaf. Now the production of a commodity 
such as silver implies not only the labour of obtaining from 
the ground and refining, but the labour of transport to the 
mint or market ; and if the remuneration for a barrowful 
were only a four-pound loaf, all the labourers concerned 
would have died of starvation long before a thin film had 
been spread over the bottom of the barrow. 
I am not losing sight of what is called the imperishable 
quality of the precious metals. A better and more accurate 
term to use would be the accumulative quality. If we 
employ this term we see that it is a quality which is shared 
in by all commodities, the difference being only one of 
degree. Thus even food-stuffs have a certain accumulative 
quality ; the heavy harvests of one year may result in un- 
usually heavy stocks being held over for the next; the 
exchangeable value of the commodity being depressed in 
consequence. But in this case the farmer will put his land 
under oats or some other crop, or the consumption may be in- 
creased until the exchangeable value rises again to the average 
labour value. The decline of the exchangeable value of all 
productions through the accumulation of stocks is checked in 
the same way. Now the precious metals are perishable like 
all other commodities, though in a vastly slower manner. 
There is no probability of their utility being diminished, and, 
therefore, with the growth of population and the increase in 
the quantity of other commodities, the demand for the precious 
metals will increase rather than diminish ; it will never be 
less than the existing stock. A constant addition to the 
supply, therefore, is necessary to prevent an enhancement of 
