36 
MONEY 
siderable confusion: transport may be interrupted 
by warlike operations so that the price at which gold 
may be bought from abroad is difficult to ascertain, 
and the issuers may have taken the precaution of 
forbidding free transactions in bullion at home. But 
soon this does not matter, because, as the issue goes 
on, the rise in the price of bullion becomes too great 
to be denied. 
3. Sometimes it is contended that a rise in the price 
of bullion is due not to a depreciation of the money but 
to an appreciation of bullion. This covers two 
different contentions between which confusion is 
frequent : 
(2) It may mean simply that bullion is higher in 
value relatively to commodities in general, while 
money has preserved its old relation to them. As the 
issue gets larger and larger, this too has to fade into 
the limbo of discarded arguments. But supposing 
it were true, it would only be by accidental coinci- 
dence, unless the issue of notes was managed with the 
distinct aim of securing a currency which would 
always keep the same level of value and preserve a 
complete stability of general prices. Regulation 
with this end in view is quite conceivable, and has 
often been advocated by high authority. It must be 
noticed, however, that those who put forward this 
defence of an actual issue are often persons who would 
be the loudest in their protests against the desirability 
of the adoption of any scheme for such regulation. 
(b) The other meaning of the contention that it is 
not money which has depreciated but bullion which 
has appreciated, is that the gap between the value 
of bullion and that of the unit of account and also the 
general rise of prices are to be ascribed to something 
that has happened to bullion and ordinary com- 
modities, and not to what has happened to money, and 
therefore the unit of account has not fallen in value