Supposing the amount of trade and mode of circulation to remain stationary, if the quantity of money be increased, its value will fall, and the price of other commodities will proportionally rise, as the latter will then exchange against a greater amount of money; if, on the other hand, the quantity of money be reduced, its value will be raised, and prices in a corresponding degree diminished, as commodities will then have to be exchanged for a less amount of money. * * * In whatever degree, therefore, the quantity of money is increased or diminished, other things remaining the same, in that same proportion the value of the whole and of every part is reciprocally diminished or increased. A curtailment of the volume of money in a country will, _ceteris paribus_, increase the value of the money of that country. All the authorities agree that this law applies to all forms of money, whatever the material; so that it applies to paper money with precisely the same force that it applies to metallic money. Mr. Stanley Jevons, in his work on "Money and the Mechanism of Exchange," says: There is plenty of evidence to prove that an inconvertible paper money, if carefully limited in quantity, can retain its full value. Such was the case with the Bank of England notes for several years after the suspension of specie payments in 1797, and such is the case with the present notes of the Bank of France. Mr. Gallatin said: If in a country which wants and possesses a metallic currency of seventy millions of dollars, a paper currency to the same amount should be substituted, the seventy millions in gold and silver, being no longer wanted for that purpose, will be exported, and the returns may be converted into a productive capital, and add an equal amount to the wealth of the country. In his Proposal for an Economic and Secure Currency Ricardo says: A well regulated paper currency is so great an improvement in commerce, that I should greatly regret if prejudice should induce us to return to a system of less utility. The introduction of the precious metals for the purposes of money may with truth be considered as one or the most important steps toward the improvement of commerce and the arts of civilized life; but it is no less true, that with the advancement of knowledge and science, we discover that it would be another improvement to banish them again from the employment to which, during a less enlightened period, they had been so advantageously applied. Mr. J. R. McCulloch, in commenting on the principles of money laid down by Ricardo, says: