The Rise of Prices.
The rise in prices would regularly occur only as the new silver or paper was put out, but as the consequences would all be discounted it would be sudden and rapid. It would not, however, affect all things at the same time or to an equal degree. It is here that one of the first disappointments would occur. It is not possible to put up prices when and as one would like to do it, even when the rise is due to inflation. The effect cannot all be distributed at once. An advance in price reacts on business relations, that is, on the industrial organization. Many people and many interests find that they cannot push against others until long after they have been pushed against themselves. The wages class and the farmers are the ones who are most clearly in this position, at least as far as the latter do not produce articles for export. It must be plain that in such a convulsion of the market everybody will try to save himself at the expense of others. Who will succeed? Those certainly who spend their lives in the market and already possess the control of its machinery; not those whose time is occupied in the details of production.
Where the Expected Gains would Go.
It is said that the farmer would sell his grain and cotton, as now, for gold; that he would exchange the gold for silver; would get the silver coined and would pay his debts with it. Would any individual farmer do this? Would any one man go through the steps of this operation? — see the buyer of his products, handle the gold and silver, go to the mint? Certainly not. All these operations would go on through the commercial and financial machinery. They would be executed by different individuals, in the way of business, through the organization, and every
