two
combined form a much more stable mass than gold alone, and it cannot be
too often repeated that the great desideratum in money, the one quality
more important than all others, is stability in value, to the end that a
dollar or pound or franc may command as nearly as possible the same amount
of commodities when a contract is completed as when it is made. Economists
dispute about almost everything else, but they are unanimous in this: That
a money which changes rapidly in purchasing power is destructive of all
stability and even of commercial morality. Will anybody pretend that gold
has not changed rapidly in purchasing power within the last twenty years?
Has not the universal experience shown that the variation has been very
much greater in one metal than it ever was when the two metals were
treated equally at the mint? The very least that could be asked on the
score of honesty would be free coinage of both, with a proviso that debts
should be paid with one-half of each. Back of all that, however, comes in
the great principle of compensatory action, the variation of one metal
counteracting that of the other; and from the standpoint of pure science
and honesty it is greatly to be regretted that, instead of two precious
metals, we have not at least five.

=The market reports do indeed show an unprecedented decline in the prices
of farm products, except in a few articles such as butter, eggs, and
poultry, in places where increased population counteracts the tendency to
greater cheapness; but this decline is due to increased invention, and the
great cheapening in transportation.=

How much of it? The records of the Patent Office show, and the experience
of farmers confirms it, that all the improvements in farm machinery since
1870 have not reduced the labor cost of farm produce on the general
average more than 2-1/2 per cent. Here is a little paradox for you to
study. In the twenty-five years from 1845 to 1870 the progress of
invention in farm machinery was greater than in all the previous history
of the world, marvellously rapid, in fact, and during those years the farm
price of the produce steadily increased; but in the ensuing twenty-five
years to 1895 there were very few improvements, and the price has declined
with steadily increasing speed. This fact is either ignorantly or
skilfully evaded by Edward Atkinson and David A. Wells in their elaborate
articles on the subject; so I will present some facts and figures