Page:Appreciation and interest.djvu/15

345] to define and secure such invariability have been made by many writers. Within the last few years, the problem has become a favorite one and scarcely an issue of the economic journals appears without discussions on "The ultimate standard of value," "The just standard of deferred payments," "Has gold appreciated?" "The measurement of the value of money," and kindred subjects.

It is not prosposed to deny that the terms appreciation and depreciation may have an "absolute" as distinct from a "relative" meaning. But such definitions and distinctions can throw no light whatever on the question of justice in contracts. We shall see that a standard to be perfect need not be invariable. What is required is simply that it shall be dependable, so that contracting parties may be able to forecast all required elements of their economic future in terms of that standard as accurately as in terms of any other. If a standard is thus dependable, the terms of the contract will be as "just" as they could possibly be under any system.

At a later stage the general question of "justice" will be discussed. Here the effort will be to show that losses due to "appreciation," however defined, will tend to be forestalled. For this, it is not necessary to scale the principal of a debt. The principal is not the only or even the chief element in a loan contract. The other element is the rate of interest. It is an astonishing fact