Mr Kitson's view that the volume of trade is limited by the quantity of currency and credit is thus based on confusion between volume and value. Moreover, it follows also from the "Quantity Theory of Money," which he holds, that if he applies his remedy and multiplies currency and credit as fast as he appears to want to, the result will be a still further depreciation in the buying power of money, and a further rise in prices and an increase in all the bitterness, discontent, suspicion, and strikes that the rise in prices has already caused during the war. Is this a prospect to pray for? Surely if we want to enjoy "boundless wealth and prosperity" the way to do so is to turn out goods--things to eat and wear and enjoy--and not to multiply money, thereby merely depreciating its value, on Mr Kitson's own admission. He thinks that "nothing but an abundant supply of currency in the shape of legal tender notes and bank credit, could have enabled us to undertake successfully such unprecedented burdens" as we have borne during the war. But it may equally well be argued that we have borne these burdens because we worked harder than ever before to turn out the needed stuff, organised better, used our machinery to its full power, and spent less of our product on luxuries; and that the abundant currency, by forcing up prices, immensely increased the cost of the war and produced industrial friction which several times brought us unpleasantly close to disaster. Mr Kitson, however, uses the "Quantity Theory of Money"--the doctrine that the value or buying power of money varies according to its quantity in relation to that of the goods that it buys--chiefly as a stick wherewith to beat the Gold Standard. He shows, very easily and truly, that it is absurd to suppose that the value of the monetary gold standard is invariable. Thereby he is only beating a dead horse, for no such argument is nowadays put forward. The variability of the gold standard of value is acknowledged, whenever a fluctuation in the general level of commodity prices is recorded. But gold is the basis of our credit system, and of those of all the economically civilised countries of the world, not because its value is believed to be invariable, but because it is the commodity which is universally accepted, in such countries and in normal times, in payment of debts. This quality of acceptability it has got largely by custom and convention. Mr Kitson speaks of the "selection of gold by the world's bankers as the basis for money and credit." But it was selected as currency by common custom long before bankers were heard of. And it was selected because of its permanence, ductility and other qualities, especially its beauty as ornament, which made man, eager to adorn himself, his women-kind, and the temples of his gods, always ready to accept it in payment, knowing also that, because of this acceptability, he would always be able to exchange it into any goods that he wanted.