THE GREAT POWER. UNIVERSITY 05 145 and descriptions. Trade flourished not only in America and Australia, but also in the United Kingdom. As the supply of money for the moment became greater, relatively, than the supply of commodities, &c., prices generally began to rise,* industry was stimulated in all directions, commerce rapidly advanced, and a period of general prosperity commenced. Very similar results have followed the recent discoveries of unmanufactured money in West Australia, South Africa, and elsewhere. Although the undeveloped regions have been known to exist for many years, mankind have only hastened to develop them under the stimulus of a probable acquisition of Purchasing Power. The prospect of possessing an undeveloped country will always attract a few of the more venturesome spirits of the millions of Europe; but the conversion of such a country into a prosperous, thickly-populated, agricultural and manufacturing State is only possible by the aid of a plentiful supply of money. The people of the United States have had a plentiful supply of money, and to its influence and power the rapid development of American industries is distinctly traceable. As the United Kingdom is not rich in either gold or silver mines, its people are dependent for their supply of metallic money mainly upon the results of their agricultural, manufacturing, and * Vide the Index Numbers, p. 106. financial operations. Such money as eventually flows into the country represents the balance due for interest on Purchasing Power lent to other countries, for services of all kinds rendered abroad, and for the sale of raw and manufactured products. In checking the influx of silver by refusing to accept as money a metal which all the nations of the East and of certain parts of the West readily recognise and largely utilise, the people of the United Kingdom have deprived themselves of that which in stimulating influence and purchasing power ranks only second to gold. With so extraordinary a renunciation of Power and Stimulus, can we be surprised that in population, in commerce, and in the rate of progress generally, the people of England seem now unable to keep pace with their own kindred in America, Africa, or Australia? CHAPTER XI. Conclusions to be drawn from the foregoing-Monetary reform urgently needed-The true nature of money-The direction in which reform should be made. HE theories employed and the facts already examined show unmistakably that if the agricultural and manufacturing industries of the United Kingdom are to be saved from gradual asphyxia and ultimate comparative extinction, some great monetary reform is urgently needed. Not only is England's commercial progress seriously crippled by the want of that adequate stimulus to industry which a plentiful · supply of the Great Power has effectively afforded in other lands, but during the last twenty-five years her advance, such as it is, has been made in the face of a paralysing fall in prices the visible evidence of an adverse fluctuation in the purchasing and measuring functions of money. These subtle impediments to wealth creation are the outcome of defects in England's currency system-defects which, owing partly to the influence of the great money-lending classes, and partly to the continued acceptance of the fantastic theory of money inaugurated by Adam Smith, it has been impossible up to the present to remedy. Until the appearance of Smith's great work the people of England, perceiving that money of gold or silver could purchase all that men desired, believed that gold and silver were the principal forms of wealth. As England possessed neither silver nor gold mines, the precious money could only be obtained by encouraging exports of merchandise and restraining imports. The latter was effected by high duties and absolute prohibition, whilst the former was attained by drawbacks, bounties, advantageous commercial treaties with foreign States, and by the establishment of colonies in distant lands. This was the celebrated Mercantile System. Although the great economists and statesmen of the United Kingdom have ridiculed and swept aside the Mercantile System, there can be no doubt that in principle it was thoroughly sound. The condition of civilisation at which we have now arrived no longer renders it necessary to adopt the methods by which the legislators of earlier ages hoped to enrich their country, but the fact remains that money is still the Great Power-money still purchases practically all that men want; and the actions of the peoples of the world show that money is still regarded as the most desirable and useful form of wealth. Nobody questions that it is to the interest of the individual to receive more money than he pays away. Is it not then to the interest of the mass of individuals who form the State, that more money should be due to them than by them? Should not the nation as a whole earn more than it spends? And if so, ought not the Legislature to take such steps as may be calculated to bring about this result? Undoubtedly. Yet this is the old Mercantile System. The only difference between the ideas of to-day and those of a century and a half ago is with regard to the means by which the acquisition of wealth can best be encouraged. With the additional security which a more advanced civilisation affords, it is no longer necessary either for the individual or for the State to retain and hoard money of gold and silver. The right to money is, for some purposes, as useful as the actual money itself; and promises to pay gold or silver, or acknowledgments that gold or silver are due, will now serve in many circumstances where before the precious metals were absolutely necessary. But the acquisition of money and of rights to money engages as much attention now as ever the desire for silver and gold did in bygone ages. Whilst economists have been arguing that money is not wealth, but simply a "medium that facilitates the exchanges of wealth, man has everywhere been striving to secure as much of the "medium" as possible. And where his efforts have proved most successful, there the |