carefully avoid inquiry into what would follow? Let us look into it. We
may have in this country $500,000,000 in gold, though no one can tell
where it is. Assuming that free coinage would send it all abroad, the
inevitable result would be a gold inflation in Europe, which would cause a
rise in prices. I observe that of late the gold organs have been denying
this--denying, in fact, the quantitative principle in finance, something
never denied before this discussion arose. It is too true, as some
philosopher has said, that if a property interest depended on it, there
would soon be plenty of able men to deny the law of gravitation. But as
the men who deny it in one breath admit it in the next by assuring us that
we shall soon have a great increase in the production of gold, and that
prices will therefore rise, we may with confidence adhere to the
established truth of political economy.

Sending our gold to Europe, then, would raise prices there, which would
raise the price of our staple exports, such as wheat, meat, and cotton;
the great rise in the price of these would, of course, stimulate exports,
and thus aid us in maintaining a favorable balance, would restore to the
farmers that income which they have lost by the decline of prices, would
thus put into their hands the power to buy manufactured goods and to pay
our annual interest debt to Europe by commodities instead of gold. In
short, if the gold went abroad, it would necessarily be but a short time
till much of it would come back to pay for our agricultural exports, and
at the same time our farmers would get the benefit of higher prices by
both operations. If any man doubts that an increased gold supply in Europe
would increase the selling price of our farm surplus, I ask him to examine
the figures for the twelve years following the discovery of gold in
California, or the history of prices in the century following the
discovery of America--an era described by all economists as one of
inflation. Is there any reason why a like cause should not now produce