If the reasoning be simply that men tend to buy where things are cheap, and to sell where things are dear, it is clear that that establishes a very loose relation indeed between the price-levels of different countries. The second point is that some prices, by rising, actually bring in gold from abroad, while by falling they tend to release gold. I am not here referring to the case discussed in the chapter on "Supply and Demand," where a commodity, cotton, with an inelastic demand, is doubled, the doubled quantity selling for a less aggregate price, and so bringing in less money from abroad. That case would bear considerable generalization. I am referring here to the case where _credit_ is built on the value of long time goods, as lands, or railroads. Concretely, let us suppose an increase in railroad rates allowed by the Public Service Commission of Missouri. This is, in itself a rise in prices. It will, further, on the capitalization theory, make the prices of stocks of the roads operating in the State rise also, and give a margin of additional security for bond-issues. This will make it possible for these roads to float foreign loans (or would have done so before the War), and so will tend to turn the exchanges in our favor. Gold will tend to come in, not to go out. Similarly if the prices of dairy products, or truck gardens, or orchards, or orange groves rise, leading to a rise in the prices of the lands involved, foreign capital will tend to come in as loans--_i. e._, the exchanges will turn more favorable to us, and the gold movement tend to turn our way. I suppose, by the way, that something of a point could be made against the Single Tax at this point: destroying land values would lessen the security which a community could offer outside lenders. The Single Tax would, thus, hamper the development of countries which need capital from outside. Men who wish to use their own capital, under their own management, might, as the Single Taxers claim, be tempted to come in, if they could be free from taxation on the capital they bring with them; but _lenders_, who wish a good margin of security, would find less inducement to lend.[358] This is a digression, but one feature of it is pertinent: though the foreigner does not care to migrate from his high-priced land to _low_-priced land elsewhere, he is often willing to trust a _loan_ to the owner of _high_-priced land elsewhere. I will not venture the generalization that high-priced land necessarily attracts loans, and tends to turn the gold movements in favor of the country where prices are high. The point has been made that if lands are being exchanged frequently, the new buyer tends to exhaust his credit resources in paying for the land: _i. e._, puts so large a mortgage on it that he has little margin of security to offer for working capital.[359] I shall not here undertake to determine how far as a matter of fact, in different places, the one tendency outweighs the other.