192 The Stock Market Crash—And After 
out, as required. But now we are confronted with 
the disappearance of this surplus, both through the 
growth of business and the falling off of gold 
production. 
It is true that there is the menace of a world 
gold shortage which should become manifest during 
the early years of the present decade, with accom- 
panying deflation of the general price level and 
business depression, unless measures are taken to 
economize the gold supply. There is still enough 
gold as the basis of money and credit to supply the 
expanding needs of business for a year or two to 
comé. And with proper measures of prevention, 
the threatened long-term business depression, now 
comparatively distant, may be averted. 
But many economists and business men agree that 
the world decline in commodity prices, only slightly 
observable in the United States during the past five 
years, is the beginning of a great secular downward 
movement in prices spelling depression similar to 
the movements following the Napoleonic wars and 
the Civil War. The decline after our Civil War 
persisted until 1897. Then the discovery of new 
gold fields and the application of new methods of 
gold extraction increased the gold output, thus in- 
creasing the supply of monetary gold and giving the 
price level and upward swing. Gold production has 
increased since the World War, but has not reached 
the peak of 1915. Present yearly additions to the 
gold monetary supply are insufficient to meet the 
added demands for gold from increased business as