“Inflation,” replied the gentleman, “whether of metallic or paper currency that is accepted by the world or by a great commercial nation as a legal tender, can do no harm except to those who loan money. A dollar is a mere term. You pay now five dimes, or fifty cents, or five hundred mills, for your dinner. Suppose by large continued increase in the production of gold and silver, the money of all countries shall be inflated so that you must pay fifty dollars instead of fifty cents, or five hundred dimes in place of five hundred mills, for your dinner. What of it? You could carry as much paper money as now. It would need only to increase the denomination of the bills. All property and services would advance proportionately. Only the loaners of money would be left, and they would soon find it to their interest to put their money into property, which would necessarily advance in value, rather than in loans, which would, in their relation to property, necessarily decrease in value. Under such conditions interest would not compensate the money owner for the depreciation of his principal, and the loaning of money, except for brief periods, would cease, while property of all kinds would always be saleable for cash, because always sure to increase in value, while idle money would not so increase.” “What will be the effect of your project on the other railroads, Mr. Morning?” “My hope and expectation is that the successful working of my project will induce large aggregations of capital to acquire and conduct all the railroads in the country under one management, which should itself be under the direction and control of the Federal Government. Four thousand millions of dollars would purchase and free from bonded indebtedness all the interstate railroad and telegraph lines in the United States, and $1,000,000,000 more would improve such property to the highest point of efficiency. A company with a capital of $5,000,000,000, having no bonded debt and economically and honestly managed, could pay dividends of five per cent per annum on its stock, which stock might be increased in amount as other values increased. Present railroad bondholders would be transformed into railroad stockholders, and the stock of the United States Consolidated Railroad Company, guaranteed by the United States Government to pay five per cent per annum, and so conducted as to earn that dividend, above cost of repairs and construction of new lines, would be a favorite investment. Such stock might be made the basis of currency issued thereon to national banks. It could be held by benevolent and educational institutions, and trust funds could be invested in it. It would take the place of the present United States bonds as a lazy fund, and it would not be a lazy fund, for it would be an investment in earning property. It would substitute the earned increment of labor for the unearned increment of interest. Interest on money at best belongs to conditions which are passing away. It is an