MONEY 139 
the middle “ ’nineties ” prices have been 
rising. 
Variation in the purchasing-power of money 
may be a serious matter. When prices 
fall constantly the business world may be 
discouraged and thrown into a state of 
depression. On the other hand, when prices 
rise constantly business may become over 
excited ; and certainly the real incomes of 
the wage-earning classes are automatically 
reduced so that discontent is engendered, 
and an era of disturbance in the distribution 
of wealth is ushered in. 
Indeed, there is no economic phenomenon 
which remains unaffected by an alteration 
of the purchasing-power of money. The 
rate of interest will probably be affected— 
as the reader will understand more fully after 
studying Chapter VII.—because an anticipated 
rise in the value of what is saved naturally 
stimulates saving, while an anticipated fall 
in its value has the reverse effect. And the 
relative prices of different classes of securities 
will undoubtedly shift in a disturbing way. 
When prices ascend, for instance, the value 
of shares in property, say of shares in 
industrial concerns, will ascend, because 
the value of the property to which they 
relate, expressed in money, will ascend ; but