Page:Forgotten Man and Other Essays.djvu/206

198 and the effect is just the same as if there were none at all, the matter standing simply on the natural laws for the distribution of the precious metals. Control of demand by a corner or of supply by a monopoly acts more efficiently the smaller and closer the market is, and, conversely, the larger and wider the transaction, the less the efficiency. Furthermore, a corner to succeed must make sure that there is no source of supply, and that it has to deal only with an amount which can be computed. The gold corner on Black Friday, 1869, was ruined when the Secretary of the Treasury ordered sales of gold. A monopoly in like manner, must be able to count on steady and uniform demand. The coal combination failed when the hard times suddenly contracted the demand for coal. Hence the movement towards a wider market, embracing a larger quantity, is always a movement towards less, and not towards greater control by artificial expedients.

Applying these observations to the matter before us, I have to say (1) that I consider the inference that a coinage union would do what France did under the double standard, only more surely and efficiently, quite mistaken; (2) as to the alternate standard, I do not believe that the alternation would work on a worldwide scale at all. I regard its operation in France as fully accounted for by the relations of the three countries, England, France, and Germany; (3) as to bimetallism, the coinage union, instead of gaining more stringent control to counteract and nullify the effect of changes in supply of either metal, would have less effect in that direction the larger it was.

Having thus examined the nature of artificial interferences with value, and their limitations, I return to my proposition that to establish a concurrent circulation is just as impossible as to square the circle or to invent perpetual motion. No doubt it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to make a demonstration of a negative proposition like