sufficiently high." Some think it due to trusts and combinations, others to improved methods of production, or because the crops are overabundant or not abundant enough. Some ascribe the difficulty to speculation; others, to "strikes." All sorts of insufficient and contradictory causes are assigned for the same general and universal complaint. However inadequate in themselves, they serve to emphasize the universal recognition of a difficulty whose cause without close inquiry is likely to elude detection. But the evil is of such magnitude, it is so widespread and pervasive, that, without a knowledge of its cause, all effort at mitigation of its effects can but add to the confusion and intensify the difficulty.

It behooves us, therefore, as we value the prosperity and happiness of our people, to set ourselves diligently to the inquiry: What is the cause of the unrest and discontent now universally prevailing?

ONE SYMPTOM COMMON TO ALL INDUSTRIES.

In surveying the question broadly, to discover whether there is anything that affects the situation in common from the standpoint of varying occupations, we find one, and only one, uniform and unfailing characteristic; the prices of all commodities and of all property, except in money centers, have fallen, and continue falling. Such a phenomenon as a constant and progressive fall in the general range of prices has always exercised so baleful an influence on the prosperity of mankind that it never fails to arrest attention.

History gives evidence of no more prolific source of human misery than a persistent and long continued fall in the general range of prices. But, although exercising so pernicious an influence, it is not itself a cause, but an effect.

When a fall of prices is found operating, not on one article or class of articles alone, but on the products of all industries; when found to be not confined to any one climate, country, or race of people, but to diffuse itself over the civilized world; when it is found not to be a characteristic of any one year, but to go on progressively for a series of years, it becomes manifest that it does not and can not arise from local, temporary or subordinate causes, but must have its genesis and development in some principle of universal application.

WHAT PRODUCES A GENERAL FALL OF PRICES?

What, then, is it that produces a general decline of prices in any country? It is produced by a shrinkage in the volume of money relatively to population and business, which has never yet failed to cause an increase in the value of the money unit, and a consequent decrease in the price of the commodities for which such unit is exchanged. If the volume of money in circulation be made to bear a direct and steady ratio to population and business, prices will be maintained at a steady level, and, what is of supreme importance, money will be kept of unchanging value. With an advancing civilization, in which a large volume of business is conducted on a basis of credit extending over long periods, it is of the uttermost importance that money, which is the measure of all equities, should be kept unchanging in value through time.

EFFECT OF A REDUCTION IN THE MONEY-VOLUME.

A reduction in the volume of money relatively to population and business, or, (to state the proposition in another form) a volume which remains stationary while population and business are increasing, has the effect of increasing the value of each unit of money, by increasing its purchasing power.

It is only within a comparatively recent period that an increasing value in the money unit could produce such widespread disturbance of industry as it produces to-day. In the rude periods of society commerce was by barter; and even for thousands of years after the introduction of money, credit, where known at all, was extremely limited. Under such circumstances changes in the volume and in the value of money, while operating to the disadvantage of society as a whole, could not instantly or seriously affect any one individual. An increase of 25 per cent. in one year in the value of the money unit—a change which now, by reason of existing contracts or debts, would entail universal bankruptcy and ruin—would not be seriously felt by a community in which no such contracts or debts existed, in which payments were immediate or at short intervals, and each individual parted with his money almost as soon as he received it.

Such proportion of the annual increase in the value of the money unit as could attach to any one month, week, or day would be wholly insignificant, and as most transactions were closed on the spot, no appreciable loss could accrue to any individual. Such loss as did accrue was shared in and averaged among the whole community, making it the veriest trifle upon any individual. But how is it in our day?

THAT EFFECT INTENSIFIED AS CIVILIZATION ADVANCES.

The inventions of the past one hundred years have established a new order of the ages. The revolution of industry and commerce, effected by the adaptation of steam and other forces of nature to the uses of man, have given to civilization an impetus exceeding anything known in the former experience of mankind. Under the operation of the new system, the rapidity and intensity with which, within that period, civilization has developed, is due in great part to an economic feature unknown to ancient civilization and practically unknown even to civilized society until the present century. That feature is the time-contract, by which alone leading minds are enabled to project in advance enterprises of magnitude and moment. It is only through intelligent and far-seeing plans and projections that in a complex and minutely classified system of industry great bodies of men can be kept in uninterrupted employment.

We have 22,000,000 workmen in this country. In order that they may be kept uninterruptedly employed it is absolutely necessary that business contracts and obligations be made long in advance. Accordingly, we read almost daily of the inception of industrial undertakings requiring years to fulfill. It is not too much to say that the suspension for one season of the making of time-contracts would close the factories, furnaces, and machine shops of all civilized countries.

The natural concomitant of such a system of industry is the elaborate system of debt and credit which has grown up with it, and is indispensable to it. Any serious enhancement in the value of the unit of money between the time of making a contract or incurring a debt and the date of fulfillment or maturity always works hardship and frequently ruin to the contractor or debtor.

Three-fourths of the business enterprises of this country are conducted on borrowed capital. Three-fourths of the homes and farms that stand in the name of the actual occupants have been bought on time, and a very large proportion of them are mortgaged for the payment of some part of the purchase-money.

Under the operation of a shrinkage in the volume of money this enormous mass of borrowers, at the maturity of their respective debts, though nominally paying no more than the amount borrowed, with interest, are, in reality, in the amount of the principal alone, returning a percentage of value greater than they received—more than in equity they contracted to pay and oftentimes more, in substance, than they profited by the loan. To the man of business this percentage in many cases constitutes the difference between success and failure. Thus a shrinkage in the volume of money is the prolific source of bankruptcy and ruin. It is the canker that, unperceived and unsuspected, is eating out the prosperity of our people. By reason of the almost universal inattention to the nature and functions of money this evil is permitted, unobserved, to work widespread ruin and disaster. So subtle is it in its operations that it eludes the