The fact that prices are low is made the subject of social complaint and of political agitation in the United States. Prices have undergone a wave since 1850. They arose until about 1872. They have fallen again. They are lower than they were at the top of the wave all the world over. This fact, the explanation of which would furnish a very complicated task for trained statisticians and economists, is made a topic of easy interpretation and solution in political conventions and popular harangues, and it is proposed to adopt violent and portentous measures upon the basis of the flippant notions which are current about it. But what difference does it make whether the “plane” of prices is high or low? If corn is at forty cents a bushel and calico at twenty cents a yard, a bushel buys two yards. If corn is at ten cents a bushel and calico at five cents a yard, a bushel will buy two yards. So of everything else. If, then, there has been a _general_ fall, and that is the alleged grievance, neither farmers nor any other one class has suffered by it. It is undoubtedly true that a period of advancing prices stimulates energy and enterprise. It does so even when, if all the facts were well known, it might be found that capital was really being consumed in successive periods of production. Falling prices discourage enterprise, although, if all facts were known to the bottom, it might be found that capital was being accumulated in successive periods of production. It is also true that a depreciation of the money of account, _while it is going on_, stimulates exports and restrains imports. But who can tell how we are to make prices always go up, unless by constant and unlimited inflation? Who can tell how we are to avoid fluctuations in prices or eliminate the element of contingency, risk, foresight, and speculation? It is also true that, although high prices and low prices are immaterial at any one time, the change from one to the other, from one period of time to another, affects the burden of outstanding time contracts. Men make contracts for dollars, not for dollar’s-worths. Selling long or short is one thing; lending is another. Borrowers and lenders never guarantee each other the purchasing power of dollars at a future time. If the contracts were thus complicated they would become impossible. Between 1850 and 1872 the debtors made no complaint and the creditors never thought of getting up an agitation to have debts scaled up. The debtors now are demanding that they be allowed to play heads I win, tails you lose, and Mr. St. John and others tell us that they have the votes to carry it; as if that made any difference in the forum of discussion.