That in order to establish the appreciation of money it is necessary to show that _all_ commodities have fallen in price, or that the price experiences of different commodities had harmonized in their decline, as Mr. Wells implies, is manifestly absurd. Even if average prices were constant, there would be continual fluctuations of individual prices, some rising, others falling, and these continue the same with an increasing money value, so that some prices might not alter at all, or might rise even with a rising money value, but others again would decline in a greater degree than if the money value were constant. If the average purchasing power of money is greater, then its value is greater, whatever be the cause. So much space has been devoted to a criticism of this article because the opinions expressed in it seem to be fundamental and dangerous errors. Moreover, they are given added weight by the reputation and prominence of the author, while they are more or less representative of the arguments of other defenders of the gold standard. Either Mr. Wells is mistaken in his conception of _value_, and of the standard by which it is measured, or Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, and all other authorities on Political Economy are mistaken in supposing that the value of a commodity is its general purchasing power. CHAPTER VI. FOREIGN COMMERCE. It is claimed by many writers that international trade is carried on upon a gold basis, and that it is necessary, therefore, if a country is to maintain and increase such trade, that it should have its money based upon gold, since its "balance of trade" must be paid in gold. The idea of foreign trade involved in such statements is a relic of the old "mercantile theory" that the great object of any country was to export as much as possible of its products and receive in return the largest possible amount of gold and silver,--to get gold, in fact, at any hazard. This theory was buried, a century ago, under the weight of Adam Smith's arguments, and every economist since then has helped to bury it deeper; but its ghost still stalks and appears now and again in the form of such statements as the above, and in the common expressions "the balance of trade is against the country," or "the balance of trade is in favour of the country," meaning that gold is being exported or imported, and implying that the one is an injury or the other a benefit to the country. From a mercantile point of view, there is some justification for these expressions, and for the satisfaction felt at a condition of things requiring the import of gold. As before stated, the value of gold is inversely as general prices in gold-standard countries, and the import of gold means a lowering of its value and a general rise of prices,--which, of course, is what merchants like to have happen; and the export of gold means a fall in prices,--which they dread.