201 
State Convention—Gold as a Standard, Etc. 
that body must be chosen in reference to it. Hence, a great politi¬ 
cal struggle. This cannot be helped, nor ought to be regretted. 
What more desirable than that parties should be formed upon 
those issues, in which the public interests are most deeply involved? 
How indispensable that the people inform themselves in regard to 
questions that concern themselves so intimately! The more agita¬ 
tion, the more discussion, the sooner will the masses be likely to 
discover the true remedies for the ills they suffer. 17 
GOLD AS A STANDARD OF VALUE. 
BY G. M. STEELE, D. D., PRESIDENT OF LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY. 
In fixing a standard, it is essential to select something that is as 
nearty as possible invariable. The conventional unit of lineal meas¬ 
ure must not be a line which averages a foot; though it mav be 
fourteen inches to-day and nine inches to-morrow. The bushel- 
measure should not contain two or three quarts more or less at one 
time than at another. For the same reason it is desirable that the 
unit of value should have the same purchasing power next week 
that it has now. 
But here we are met by a peculiarity in our unit of value meas¬ 
ure. The measure itself is a commodity. The merchants scales, 
and weights, and yard-stieks are not for sale, but his dollars are; 
that is, the hitter are not used for the sole purpose of measure¬ 
ment. Now, value is not a quality inherent in an article, it is a 
relative term signifying the amount of any one thing for which a 
given amount of another may be equitably exchanged. If there be 
but two things, the value of one being expressed in terms of the 
other, they cannot both lose or gain value at the same time, neither 
can one lose or gain while the other remains stationary any more 
than the two arms of the balance can both ascend or descend at the 
same time, or one go up while the other does not go down. If the 
value of the one is diminished the value of the other is increased in 
a correspondinding ratio and vice versa. 
So with reference to the whole range of commodities in the com¬ 
munity. There can be no general rise or fall of values. It is true 
