Whatever other quality gold may posses than as the bearer of the money function is inconsistent with the healthful and proper exercise of the task assigned it as such. Whenever any portion of the metal is used for any other purpose than money it destroys the money and thus changes the value of every unit of money in circulation, for, at already stated--other things remaining unchanged--the value of each dollar depends on the number of dollars that are out. Without forewarning, and with out knowledge on the part of the people, large amounts of the money volume, on which so infinite a number of equities rest, and on the basis of which all debts and time contracts have been entered into, are, as it were, surreptitiously abstracted and appropriated to other and always inferior uses, for by far the highest and noblest use of any material upon which the money function has been conferred, is the money use. No other use can possibly be so high or so noble as that of maintaining all equities undisturbed. It seems unworthy a highly developed civilization which, as to all subjects other than money, regulates its affairs by the application of intelligence, and bases its policies upon exact data, scientifically ascertained and correctly applied, to depend for its money system upon the accidents, make-shifts, and expedients to which primitive society, by reason of the limitation of its powers and the undeveloped condition of the human mind and hand, was compelled to resort. If the quantitative theory of money be correct--if the money standard be, as I insist it is, a steady and duly proportioned numerical relation existing between the units of population and units of money--it is the duty of society and government to see that as far as practicable that principle is put into operation. The history of the production of the precious metals from the remotest ages demonstrates that under the automatic system of money this can only be effected by the unrestricted coinage of, and conferring the full legal-tender function on, both metals. THE PROPOSITION THAT THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD LEND MONEY ON THE SECURITY OF REAL ESTATE. If a change in the whole number of money units in circulation relatively to population and business do not affect the value of each unit, then no objection can be found to the proposition recently presented in the Senate by the distinguished Senator from California, which created some surprise among Senators. The resolution of that Senator contemplates a loan by the Government to holders of real estate based upon the security of the property; and the issue of a large amount of Treasury notes for that purpose. Certainly, if a dollar, in order to perform properly the money function, must have in it or back of it a dollar's worth of material, there can be no safer security found than that suggested by the Senator from California, namely, the arable land of the United States.