Now, we shall say a few words in regard to another function, a means of paying long contracts, or debts which run over a long term of years. Suppose that I loaned you in 1880, $1,000 for twenty years. In that year the $1,000 bought a certain quantity of corn, wheat, sugar, salt, wood, hats, and shoes. In 1900, when you are to pay me back the $1,000 in money, if prices have changed, you may give me back the same amount of money, but you will not return to me the same purchasing power over other things. If for some reason prices have fallen between 1880 and 1900, it will take less money to buy the same quantity as before of corn, wheat, etc. If so, the $1,000 you return me in 1900 will be of more value than the $1,000 I gave you, and it would be unjust to oblige you to give me more than you borrowed. If, on the other hand, prices have risen, then the $1,000 in money would buy me less than before, so that I should lose. * * * Hence, the value of money (gold or silver) does not remain the same for any length of time; and the precious metals, while they are very satisfactory for exchanges which do not take very long to complete, can not serve as a proper measure of value during a long term or years. Ricardo, the greatest authority on the gold standard, the financial writer, more highly regarded throughout the world than any other that has ever appeared in Great Britain, whose logical utterances have never failed to attract the attention of mankind, stated the true condition of things in 1810, and advocated the true policy for Great Britain. In his "Proposals for an Economical and Secure Currency," Ricardo makes the following statement, which I commend to the careful attention of the advocates of the single gold standard: While a standard is used, we are subject to only such a variation in the value of money as the standard itself is subject to; but against such variation there is no possible remedy, and late events have proved that, during periods of war, when gold and silver are used for the payment of large armies distant from home, those variations are much more considerable than has been generally allowed. This admission only proves that gold and silver are not so good a standard as they have been hitherto supposed--that they are themselves subject to greater variations than it is desirable a standard should be subject to. They are, however, the best with which we acquainted.