Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/238

 their still lighter tails of bullion, is that the plunging has differed in degree. Our money has been able to command little in goods and services: theirs, in most cases, still less. The barometer reading which we can get every morning from the foreign exchange rates is simply an expression of the relative position of the various kites to each other, not to the ground: in more concrete terms, we may say that the rise or fall in the exchange rate between two countries, barring political factors, or pure speculation, represents a comparative rise or fall in the purchasing power of currency in the country of its own origin. Actually it is a naïve expression of the unmitigated opinion which different nationals have of their own currency.

The rate of exchange between the dollar and the pound, in the last analysis, rests on the amount of goods or services we will part with for a dollar compared with the amount of goods or services Great Britain will part with for a pound, if free interchange is permitted.

Apart from the phenomena of taxation and currency, there is one other significant symptom of our deranged economic vision to consider. We have democracy and imperialism jogging along comfortably together at this late date, as in the cases of the United States, France, Australia and New Zealand. This simply means that we are unconsciously utilizing the dubious weapons of autocracy in our search for exclusive markets. Mandate C, the shrivelled green bud of international regeneration which came instead of the rosy flower we anticipated, must disillusionize us if we are honest. Tariffs under these mandates are extended to cover the territory of immature races. Are these for their protection—to encourage sewing-machine factories and optical-instrument works and the fabrication of synthetic dyes in the tropical dependencies? Hardly! They are efforts to extend the scope of an arbitrary token of value, and to pre-empt effective demand. If the extension of these tariffs is not for the benefit of the dependencies, can it be that it is for the benefit of the agriculturalist of the imperial democracy applying it, so that his living conditions may be forced up to the high standard of West Africa and Polynesia?