Page:Coin's Financial School.djvu/125

 Rh still increased. It became more valuable therefore, bought more property, silver included.

"As the effect of these changes began to be felt, prices declined. As the demand for gold increased, its value increased—just as the value of your wheat would increase if the double duty of both corn and wheat were put upon it.

"So the purchasing power of gold continued to increase and this increase was indicated by what is known as the fall of prices. Silver was no longer primary money with us and it too as compared with rising gold declined in the market. It is the best thermometer we have to indicate the rise in gold.

"This scroll that I invite you to study," and here unrolled a parchment and hung it on the wall, "gives you the decline in the price of silver, wheat, and cotton.

"We say 'decline,' but it would be equally true for us to say that these figures registered the rise in the purchasing power of money under this financial system that is based on gold.

"Our daily expression is that wheat or some other property has declined so much. Bradstrect and Dun reported last week an average decline in all property of one and 1-10 per cent.

"It would be a more intelligent understanding of the situation to say that the gold crop of the world—this crop that can be fenced in by twenty-two feet each way—had appreciated in value as the demand for it had increased.

"Remember that it has no way of expressing its value, except by what it will buy. The gold in a gold dollar may double or thribble in value, but so long as it is the unit of value, it will ,;till be called a dollar, and