Page:Bankers and Credit (1924).pdf/194

 fundamental truths of Economic Science they might learn that a future of boundless wealth and prosperity is theirs, provided they have the will and determination to secure what is well within the bounds of possibilities. . . . We must first decide to break with the past by getting rid of our bankrupt political and economic ideals and methods, our conservatism, our ignorance and superstition."

So far most of us will follow him. "We must rid ourselves," he continued, "of those foolish laws—the relics of the ignorance and prejudices of our forefathers—such as the Bank Charter Act and other parliamentary restrictions." He went on to show that wealth is the product of two prime factors—man and nature—generally termed labour and land, and asked how it is, "with an unlimited or practically unlimited supply of these two factors," that wealth is, or hitherto has been, so comparatively scarce? And he answered the question by saying that "a study of the currency and bank methods of all industrial nations for the past century will convince every unprejudiced person that the scarcity of wealth and the limited amount of production has been due primarily to the legally restricted supply of money" (page 32).

It was indeed a most hopeful theory.