24 
MONEY 
present. But people do not always pay on delivery: 
they frequently induce the seller to let them have the 
soods on condition that they will pay some time (in 
all important cases at some definite time), after 
delivery. The seller then gives the goods for nothing 
at the moment because he contracts to receive a 
certain agreed sum of gold at the agreed future 
date. The buyer of the goods contracts to deliver 
this gold at the future date. If both buyers and 
sellers are influenced by some wave of sentiment 
which makes them believe prices will go higher, the 
prices at which these contracts are concluded will be 
higher, whether there is any justification for the belief 
or not. 
History shows that war raises prices (lowers the 
value of gold), and this seems very surprising to 
those who regard gold as the sinews of war. If it 
is the sinews of war, they think, it should rise, not 
fall ; all belligerents seem to want money very badly, 
and gold is the best kind of money and that which 
they seem to want most. But all this is fallacious ; 
money is not the sinews of war, and what the belli- 
gerents want is not money but various things which 
they hope money will buy. In their hurry to get 
munitions they are ready to pay away all the money 
they can acquire by taxes or by promising to pay 
money (with interest and very likely a premium) at 
some future date. Far from prizing money more than 
usual in comparison with commodities and services, 
they shovel out money and promises to pay money 
with far less reluctance than in times of peace. As 
for the special utility of gold, that metal is one of the 
few which are of no direct use for military purposes. 
A belligerent may sometimes think it useful to parade 
a large stock of it, as more than one government 
did during the war, because owing to the erroneous 
beliefs of the public this may comfort his subjects