Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 32.djvu/23

Rh and that such deficiency—even if a much higher estimate than that of Mr. Pixley's is adopted—has for each and every year for a considerable period been far more than supplemented and made good by the reduction in the amount of capital, in the form of money, which the increased facilities for doing business have permitted and effected, is a proposition also which it would seem could not well be doubted.

The evidence, therefore, seems to fully warrant the following conclusions: that the tendency of the age is to use continually less and less of coin in the transaction of business; and that "so far from there being any scarcity of gold, there never was a period in the world's commercial history when the existing quantity was so large as at present, in proportion to the necessity for its use or the purposes it has to serve."

It is also exceedingly interesting and significant to note here how completely the most distinguished advocate of the desirability of enlarging the function and use of silver in coinage has repudiated the idea that the recent phenomenal decline of prices has been occasioned by a scarcity of gold. Thus, under date of April 24, 1886, M. Cernuschi thus writes in the London "Economist": "The fall of prices which is complained of is not due to what has been called a scarcity of gold—a scarcity which is purely imaginary." M. Sauerbeck, in referring to this matter ("Journal of the Royal Statistical Society," September, 1886), also says: "A scarcity" (of gold) "as understood by bankers does not exist. Prices have fallen so much that scarcity is not observable. As Mr. Giffen pointed out, there may be enough for present requirements, and the scarcity will only be felt when prices rise." But if prices have fallen through the ingenuity of man, will prices return to their former level? Certainly not, unless the coming man is less ingenious than his present representatives, and Nature is to be less generous in the future of her resources.