disgusted super-tax payer once observed to me, because "things like pearls can always be sold easily and are a good liquid reserve, and in the meantime they don't bring in any income for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to rob you of."
But is this sort of thing worth doing in present circumstances? It does not seem to me to be so, though now that currency matters are once more the subject matter of politics, no one has any right to feel certain about them. For many centuries the tendency has been in favour of gradual currency depreciation, or a gradual rise in the prices of commodities, with occasional reactions. In the days of King Henry the Fourth, as Master Silence tells us, "a score of good ewes may be worth ten pounds." This rise in prices has been one of the methods by which Fortune has carried out a "Seisachtheia," or relief of burdens, such as was deliberately introduced by Solon at Athens,[1] and has loosened the grip of the creditor on the productive power of the world. But it has been so gradual that the creditor has not been afflicted by it to the point of giving up the habit of being a creditor and an investor. During the nineteenth century something approaching stability was achieved. The output of commodities was enormously
- ↑ Grote's, History of Greece, Part II, Chapter XI.
