than these. The fact is that since 1896, or thereabouts, there has been in process a definite alteration in the standard of value, and this is a main reason why prices push upward.
The reason of this change is definite. The output of gold, which is the standard of value, has increased rapidly in recent years up to an annual total of nearly 100 millions sterling today; and, altogether, the entire production of it in the first decade of this century has been over £750,000,000 sterling. Taking the holdings of gold in the banks and treasuries of twenty-eight of the most important commercial countries, it will be found that about half this great output has passed into their keeping, the rest circulating outside them, in currency or in the arts.
Many experts have argued that this vast accumulation of the precious metal can have no effect on prices, because in modern business any relationship between gold and commodities is wholly cut off by the intervention of credit. But to argue thus is to confound the medium of exchange, which nowadays is credit mainly, with the measure of value, gold. Putting this objection then aside, it is plain that an enormous addition to the material constituting the standard of value must depreciate that standard, or, in other words, must raise prices in the long run.
But, if so, then evidently to all those who have fixed incomes or wages this is of serious concern. It means that the purchasing power of their wages
