Page:Tales in Political Economy by Millicent Garrett Fawcett.djvu/75

 times each individual had occasion to employ money became greater; therefore the demand for money increased, but the supply remained fixed and stationary; it was thus inevitable that its exchange value should be increased. The trade of Isle Pleasant therefore presented the spectacle of steady growth, of a continual increase in wealth and prosperity, together with a correspondingly steady decline in general prices. This is no exceptional phenomenon. The same tendency for an increasing trade to produce a decline in prices exists in all countries, but it is counteracted by the circumstance that the supply of money and of the substitutes for money is capable of being increased in a degree corresponding, or even more than corresponding, with the increased use for money caused by commercial development. Thus in England the immense growth of trade since the repeal of the corn laws and the development of the railway system (1846—50), has been accompanied by a rise in general prices varying, according to different authorities, from 15 to 25 per cent. But this would not have been pos-