The Right Hon. A. J. Balfour, now the head of the British Cabinet, in a speech delivered at Manchester, October 27, 1892, said: "We want two things of our currency. We require that it shall be a convenient medium of exchange between different countries, and we require of it that it shall be a fair and permanent record of obligation over long periods of time. In both of these great and fundamental requirements of a currency, our existing currency totally and lamentably fails." After showing that within fifteen years the money of Great Britain and Ireland had advanced in purchasing power no less than 30 or 35 per cent., he went on to say that of its further progressive appreciation "No living man can prophesy the limit." A little later he spoke of it as progressing "steadily, continuously, indefinitely," and closed his remarks on that subject in these words: "If you will show me a system which gives absolute permanence, I will take it in preference to any other. But of all conceivable systems of currency, that system is assuredly the worst which gives you a standard steadily, continuously, indefinitely appreciating, and which by that very fact throws a burden on every man of enterprise, upon every man who desires to promote the agricultural or industrial resources of the country, and benefits no human being whatever but the owner of fixed debts in gold." In his work "The Bimetallic Question" Hon. Samuel Smith, M. P., presents as an evidence of the hardships due to the increasing purchasing power of money these facts: "The English landlords who borrowed L400,000,000 on their property, agreeing to pay, let us say, L16,000,000 a year, interest at 4 per cent., supposing that it represented one-quarter of their rents, now find, owing to the fall of prices, that it represents one-third, or even in some cases one-half of their rent.... The factory owner, the mine owner, the ship owner, who thought it safe twenty years ago to borrow half the value of his plant in order to find capital for his business, now finds that the mortgagee is the virtual owner. Nearly all the profits go to pay the mortgagee's claim, and in many cases he has foreclosed, and sold out the unhappy borrower, ruined through no fault of his own, but through the extraordinary sinking of prices. As a matter of fact, I believe that if all the fixed capital engaged in trade in England could be valued to-day at its real selling price, it would be found that it would do little more than pay the mortgages and debts upon it. Trade is very greatly and injuriously affected by sudden alterations in the standard of value, especially when the alteration is, as now, towards increased values. It arises in this way: trade is largely carried on by borrowed capital, or, in other words, by the use of credit in some shape or other; the vast banking deposits are mainly loaned to traders; a very great deal of the invested capital of this country is lent upon mortgages upon