(_On a highly Uninteresting Topic._)
_First Aspiring Political Economist_ (_picking his way cautiously_).
What the Bimetallists maintain is this: that by fixing an artificial
ratio between the relative values of gold and silver, you somehow (_a
little vaguely_) keep up prices; and so, at least,--so I fancy,--assist
the circulation of capital. At all events, that is what I take M. EMILE
DE LAVELEYE to mean. (_Tentatively._) You see that, don't you?
_Second Aspiring Political Economist._ Not a bit of it. Why, EMILE DE
LAVELEYE is an ass. (_Emphatically._) GIFFEN says so. And you can't have
a higher authority than GIFFEN (_clinching the matter_). Why, he's Hon.
Assistant Deputy Secretary to the Board of Commerce; (_with animation_)
in fact, he says that all Bimetallists are hopeless lunatics, and, in my
opinion, he's about right.
_Third Aspiring Political Economist._ I don't see that at all. But if
you are going to settle the matter by merely quoting names, what have
you got to say to FOXWELL, the London Professor? He's a Bimetallist, and
no mistake.
_Second Aspiring Political Economist._ "Got to say?" Why, ask LEVIN of
Cambridge what he thinks of him. LEVIN backs up GIFFEN in every word he
says, and I agree with both of them. How can you have two standards?
(_Explicitly._) The thing is preposterous.
_First Aspiring Political Economist._ It is all very well to lay down
the law in that fashion, but it will not dispose of facts. You may quote
GIFFEN, or LEVIN, or anyone you like, but they will not be able to do
away with the circumstance, that prices are regulated by the quantity of
money in circulation (_with a little hesitation_); at least, that is
what I understand the other side to maintain.
_Second Aspiring Political Economist._ Sheer nonsense. How does the
quantity of money you possess affect the price you pay for a commodity?
The fact of your having twenty sovereigns in your purse won't make your
butcher charge you an extra halfpenny a pound for a leg of mutton! That
must be clear to any fool!
_First Aspiring Political Economist._ But you don't understand. It's
numbers that do it. They mean, if thirty millions of people, each have
twenty sovereigns a-piece in their purses (_doubtfully_), _then_, I
suppose, the butchers would raise the price of their meat. At least,
that's what I fancy they imply when they talk of an "artificial
currency" raising prices (_with some vagueness_), or is it "artificial
prices" creating an increased currency. I couldn't _quite_ follow them
in this. But I am sure, whichever of the two views was expressed by M.
EMILE DE LAVELEYE, that one had, no doubt, a great deal of sound
argument to back it.
_Third Aspiring Political Economist._ I think you miss the point. Take
an illustration. Say you arrive at a cannibal island with ten thousand
complete sets of evening dress clothes, and that another ship, just
before the arrival of yours, has taken the last ten-pound-note off the
island, how, supposing there was to be a native rush to obtain one of
your suits, would the absence of any money to pay for them affect their
market value? I mayn't have got it quite correctly, but this, or
something like it, is one of the cases that GIFFEN brings forward to
prove his point. The matter, however, appears to me to be a little
complicated.
_Second Aspiring Political Economist._ Not in the least. It proves the
humbug of the Bimetallic position up to the hilt. Of course, you must
assume, that the cannibals desire to dress in evening clothes. I confess
that has to be considered, and then the question lies in a nutshell.
There can't be two opinions about it.
_First Aspiring Political Economist._ Well, to me, though, of course, I
am willing to admit there _may_ be something in it, I can't say that the
matter is, at first sight, convincingly clear. (_Candidly._) My chief
difficulty is, I confess, to arrive at any definite conclusion with
myself, as to what "Bimetallism" really means, and what it does not; and
I own I feel still vague as to the two questions of the influence of the
quantity of money on prices, or the price of a commodity on the value of
money respectively, and, though I carefully read all that appears in the
daily papers on the subject, I am compelled to own that I do not seem to
be nearer a solution of the perplexing difficulty. However, it is, no
doubt, a highly absorbing, if not a very useful, subject for
investigation.
[_Left investigating it as Curtain falls._
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