JU 
MONEY 
of supply. If the Government or other issuers are 
able to prevent the manufacture, or forgery as they 
would call it, of notes by other persons, and if they 
themselves do not give out or keep out more notes of 
each denomination than would have been issued and 
kept out if the notes had been convertible, the issue 
-annot possibly have any other value than that which 
a convertible issue would have had. Just as the 
convertible issue is kept up in value by the demand 
and adequate limitation of supply, so may the incon- 
vertible be kept up. 
But though they need not be any greater in total 
than convertible notes, inconvertible notes may be 
so, and even when the coin is convertible into free 
bullion, they can be issued in sufficient amount to 
press the value of money down below that of the 
bullion contents of the coin indicated by the unit of 
account. They can, for example, be issued in suffi- 
sient quantities to bring the value of the English 
pound below that of the gold contents of the sover- 
sign, the American dollar below that of the gold 
contents of an American gold dollar, or the Indian 
rupee below that of the contents of the Indian silver 
rupee. That this kind of thing has happened in past 
history is generally admitted, but when it happens, 
it is generally unperceived by the mass of the people 
and strenuously denied by many of those who ought 
to know. They are so accustomed to expect changes 
of the value of particular articles to be reflected in 
their money prices that they cannot understand 
general prices being higher because the measure of 
price has been changed. 
Yet the process is really simple enough. The whole 
of some issues of notes and a part of most may be 
absorbed in increasing the stocks of currency held by 
persons and institutions. The British Government 
might have stored in vaults a sovereign for every