of 1896 was, it would seem, due more to the well-founded
fear that a sudden change of the money standard would cause a panic
than to a popular understanding of the question.

The free-silver advocates got what they desired, a reversal of
the movement of general prices, through an occurrence for which no
political party could claim the credit. In 1883 the gold production of
the world was less than $100,000,000. From that date, with the opening
of newer gold-yielding territory in South Africa and in the Klondike,
the annual output of gold had been increasing rapidly and almost
steadily. The methods of extracting gold theretofore had still been in
large part of a primitive sort. But intricate machinery was taking the
place of crude tools, chemical processes had been introduced (notably,
the cyanide process), and the principal product began to come from
the regular and certain working of deep mines rather than from chance
surface discoveries. In many parts of the world were enormous deposits
of low-grade ores, before useless, that could be worked economically
by the new methods.

The general price level fluctuated, but on the whole tended downward
between 1884 and 1893 (the year of panic), and reached a minimum in
the year 1895 in Germany, 1896 in England, and 1897 in America. It
is noteworthy that the very year 1896, which marked the height of the
political agitation to abandon the gold standard for silver, saw the
gold production for the first time in all history surpass the two
hundred million dollar mark. The gold output had caught up with, and
began to surpass, the normal monetary demands of the world, meaning by
that phrase, the amount of gold needed to maintain a stationary level
of prices.

Sec. 12. #Rising prices after 1896#. The whole character of the monetary
problem then changed. A period of rising prices set in, which has
continued to the present time. By 1913 prices had risen just about 50
per cent above the low level of 1896. The rise has been, and still
is, at the average rate of nearly 3 per cent each year. This caused a
reversal of the former positions of advantage and disadvantage on the
part of debtor and creditor respectively. The purchasing power of a
3 per cent annual interest on notes and bonds has been offset by the
decrease in the purchasing power of the principal of the debt. The
burden of the average debt began relatively to decrease. A wide field
for enterpriser's profits was opened up by the