VALUE OF GOLD 
TI 
estimated in ordinary times to take somewhere in the 
neighbourhood of a half of the annual product of the 
metal. We must always remember that the demand 
tends to increase as people become richer and more 
numerous, that it tends to decrease as security grows 
and the habit of keeping hidden hoards decays, and 
that it varies with industrial discovery, as for example, 
the invention of gold plates in dentistry, which 
increased the demand, and the invention of vulcanite 
plates, which diminished ii. Further we must note 
that for many industrial uses the demand is extra- 
ordinarily elastic, since if gold were cheaper its use 
would be extended enormously—if it were cheap 
enough an enormous number of poor people who 
now have no gold ornaments would have some, and if 
it were cheaper =" ** would be largely used for 
roofing houses. 
The demand for gold for purposes of currency is 
more difficult to deal with, owing to our being accus- 
tomed to think of demanding other things in exchange 
for currency rather than of demanding currency in 
exchange for other things, and also, perhaps, owing 
to our habit of taking examples of demand in con- 
nexion with commcdities quickly consumed, like 
wheat, rather than commodities which only perish 
slowly, like houses. If we can shake ourselves loose 
from the effect of these habits, we shall soon find the 
subject less anomalous than it is often supposed to be. 
The amount of metallic money in existence at any 
one moment of time is the sum of the amounts in the 
possession of individuals and institutions at that 
moment. It cannot grow larger without an increase 
either in the number of individuals and institutions 
who have holdings or an increase in the average 
magnitude of the sing’ - holding Other things being 
equal, therefore, an increase in the numbers of 
persons and institutions «ith separate holdings will