Jevons, a great English writer, has well said: "Land is doubtless one of the best kind of security for the ultimate repayment of a debt; and it is therefore very suitable when money is lent for a long time. But representative bank notes purport to be equivalent to gold, payable on demand, and nothing is less readily convertible into gold in an emergency than land." MR. FARMER: And we cannot have any more currency than we can redeem daily in gold. Therefore we can't make currency out of all of our real estate, even our agricultural land, which is according to our last census worth sixteen billions or $160 for every man, woman and child in the United States. The average value per acre is $15.57. Now, at first thought, anyone would say that it would be safe to issue money for this value, or sixteen billion dollars; but who would redeem it? That is the question. One hundred and sixty dollars for every man, woman and child. That would certainly be absurd; and yet I have always thought that we could do that very thing until tonight. I see how it is, currency must be currently redeemed in our standard of value, or it will become first worth less than 100 cents on the dollar, and if the thing goes far enough, it would actually become practically worthless, although it might be based upon valuable real estate. How perfectly simple and plain this all is now. MR. LAWYER: Indeed, it is simple and plain, but do you know that that scheme of making currency or money out of real estate, or converting real estate into currency or money, was tried twice in France upon a most gigantic scale? First, John Law, in 1717, worked out a scheme whereby he tied the government of France to a land enterprise in the United States, the "Mississippi Scheme," covering a large French grant, and through his plan issued money, Government money, that represented about one-quarter cash and the balance real estate. But everybody has heard of John Law and the "Mississippi Bubble," so I won't say any more about that. Nearly a century afterward the same scheme was tried again, and strange as it may seem, in France, too. From 1789 to 1796, during the French Revolution, the credit of the French Government was added to vast real estate holdings, so that the security was doubled, such as it was. I have just looked this matter up with a good deal of care, and the best description I found was substantially as follows: