natural valuc as metals, and who claim that they should still be kept at that price by restrictions upon all other money, were taught that all honest and equitable commerce requires that each and every commodity that may be sold at all—whether it be called money, or by any other name—should be sold only at the price it will bear in free and open market, and subject to the free competition of every other commodity that may there be offered in competition with, or in exchange for, it; that the free and open market is as much the true and only test of the true and natural market value of every thing that can be called money, as it is of the true and natural market value of every thing that is exchanged for money.
Perhaps we may conclude that, since industry is an animal, so to speak, that feeds and lives on money; since its strength, activity, and growth depend mainly upon the amount of money that is furnished to it; since we as yet know of no limits to its increase in power, except the limits set by the money that is supplied to it; since, when it is fully supplied with money, it will create two, five, ten, a hundred, often thousands, sometimes millions, and even hundreds and thousands of millions, of dollars of wealth, for every dollar that it consumes,[1] but, when stinted or deprived of money, necessarily languishes or dies; and since, when it languishes or dies, mankind languish or die with it,—perhaps, in view of these facts, we may conclude that to stint or deprive it of money is not merely bad economy, but fatuity and suicide.[2]
And, finally, perhaps we may conclude that a government
- ↑ The estimate in the text is no extravagance. Suppose we could ascertain the precise number of dollars and cents, or of pounds, shillings, and pence, expended by such men as Watt, and Arkwright, and Stephenson, and Morse, and Whitney, and Fulton, and Woodworth, and Hoe, and McCormick, and so many others, in making and perfecting their inventions,—what proportion would those figures bear to those that should even attempt to measure the immeasurable value of the inventions themselves? And what must we think of the folly, absurdity, and tyranny of that dearth of money which our monopolists of money would have maintained if they could; which would have made these inventions impossible; and which now withholds them from four-fifths, perhaps from nine-tenths, of mankind?
- ↑ We have all heard of the bumpkin who tried an experiment to ascertain upon how little food his horse could be made to subsist. His experiment succeeded to his entire satisfaction, until, from some cause he could not understand, his horse happened to die. Stupid as he was, he may possibly have suspected that it was from a want of food; for we do not hear that he ever tried the experiment again. But our financial bumpkins (or something worse) persist in trying the same experiment over and over again. The industry upon which they try it invariably dies; but they learn no wisdom, or caution (or honesty) from the results.
