Mr. St. John tries his hand at the relation between prices and interest in connection with our subject. He says: “If the dollar can be cheapened by increasing the number of dollars, so that each dollar will buy less wheat, the increasing price of wheat will increase the demand for dollars to invest in its production.” Evidently he fails to distinguish between the rise in price of wheat from one gold dollar to two gold dollars per bushel, and the rise in wheat from one gold dollar to two fifty-cent silver dollars per bushel. The former would undoubtedly stimulate production. The latter would do so also, among farmers who shared Mr. St. John’s confusion on this matter. There would be many of them. They would imagine that they were getting rich by raising wheat to sell at two silver dollars, or five, ten, fifteen, or twenty paper dollars, as depreciation went on. Hence, as he says, they would pay a banker eight, ten, twelve, or fifteen per cent, in the depreciated dollars, in order to get “money,” as he calls it, with which to raise wheat. Mr. St. John thinks that this would mean that farmer and banker were both magnificently prosperous. It would mean that the real value which came in was steadily growing less than that which went out, so that the capital was being consumed. Hence the high rates of inflation times, and the disaster which follows when the truth is realized. They told a story in Revolutionary times of a man who invested his capital in a hogshead of rum which he sold out at an enormous advance--in Continental paper; but when he went to buy a new supply, all his “money” would only buy a barrel. This he retailed out at another enormous advance--in Continental--but when he went to buy more he had only enough money to buy a gallon. If he had borrowed his first capital he might have paid twenty per cent for it--in Continental--but the banker would hardly have made a good affair. MONOPOLY OF THE MONEY. We hear it asserted that the gold standard gives the owners of gold power to appropriate the money and make it scarce, and that they have used this power. Why, then, under silver or paper, may not the holders of silver or paper do the same? That the holders of gold have not done it has been shown above. But nobody can do it with any kind of value money. There are no “holders of gold.” He who holds gold wins no gains on it. The bankers who are supposed to hold it, if peace and security reign, put it all out at loan in order to get gain on it. When peace and security do not reign it is not safe to put it out, and borrowers, fearing to engage in new enterprises, do not present a demand for it. Furthermore, the greatest gains can then be won by holding money ready to buy property when the crash comes. That is what those who own surpluses are doing now. Hence there are no “holders of gold” until monetary threats and dangers call them into existence. Silver legislation has made a great many. The law of 1873 never made any.