Increase in population does not prove an increased need of money. It may prove the contrary. If the population becomes more dense over a given area, a higher organization may make less money necessary. If railroads and other means of communication are extended, money is economized. If banks and other credit institutions are multiplied, and if credit operations are facilitated by public security, good administration of law, etc., less money is needed. If these changes are going on at the same time that population is increasing (and such is undoubtedly the case in the United States), who can tell whether the net result is to make more or less currency necessary? Nobody; and all assertions about the matter are wild and irresponsible. If it was true that an increase of two millions in the population called for more dollars, how does anybody know whether the current gold production is adequate to meet the new requirement or not? The assertion is arithmetical. It says that two quantities are not equal to each other. The first quantity is the increase in the currency called for by two million more people. How much more is needed? Nobody knows, and there is no way to find out. The silver men have put figures for it from time to time, but the figures rested on nothing and were mere bald assertions. The second quantity is the amount of new gold annually available for coinage in the United States. How much is this? Nobody knows, because if an attempt is made to define what is meant it is found that there is no idea in the words. The people of the United States buy and coin just as much gold as they want at any time. Hence two things are said to be unequal to each other, when nobody knows how big either one of them is. It may be added that it makes no difference how big either one of them is. How much additional tin is needed annually for the increase of our population? Do the mines produce it? Nobody knows or asks. The mines produce, and the people buy, what they want. The case is the same as to gold. We find, then, that Mr. St. John begins with a doctrine which is untenable; then he asserts a relation between population and the need of money which does not exist; then he assumes that this need is greater than the amount of new gold produced, although neither he nor anybody else knows how big either one of these quantities is. This is the argumentation by which he aims to show that prices are reduced and misery produced by the single gold standard. It is the argumentation which is current among the silver people. Not a step of it will bear examination. The inference that we must restore the free coinage of silver, to escape this strangulation of prosperity, falls to the ground. CAUSE AND CURE OF HARD TIMES[36]