Page:Gold, Prices and Wages.djvu/13

 power is a large factor in the rise of prices. But the acceleration of purchasing power is not directly attributable to the increased output of gold. The influence of gold, either as coin, or as a support of credit, is much smaller than has been represented. The great extension of bank credit, which constitutes the acceleration of supply of money, is primarily due to three causes. Two of them relate to its supply, one to its demand. The rapid enlargement of enterprises in various countries, undertaken by states and municipalities, and accompanied by an equally rapid development of joint stock companies, has enabled a largely increasing proportion of property to figure as security for bank credit. Along with this movement has gone a wide extension of banking and of general financial apparatus. Thus there has been a great growth in those forms of wealth which are the real basis of credit and in the machinery which manufactures credit. So much for the means of supply.

A great demand for credit has coincided with this enlargement of the means of its supply. The chief factor in the enlarged demand has been the opening up of new large profitable fields of