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MONEY 
any considerable and rapid change in the currency 
part of the want for the precious metals, especially 
gold, comes from change in the policy of governments. 
At one moment a government will accumulate 
enormous sums in gold to impress its subjects or its 
enemies with an appearance of solvency, and a few 
years after it will spend the whole. For a century 
a government will prohibit the issue of notes under 
£5 and prescribe that gold must be kept against all 
notes issued above a total of £20,000,000 or so, and 
then will itself issue £1 and 10s. notes and multiply 
the issue by six without increasing the reserve 
at all. 
Some find a great difficulty at this point. They 
say they can appreciate in the abstract the argument 
that increased want for coin and for the metal of 
which the coin is composed must tend to raise the 
value of both the coin and the uncoined metal, but 
that they cannot see how the result comes about. 
If more gold is wanted for dental plates, it seems 
reasonable to expect that more will have to be paid 
for it, but then it is paid for in gold sovereigns, and 
cannot be worth more than before in them, for the 
two are the same thing; so, too, if more coin is 
wanted it is all very well to expect it to rise in 
value, but how can it, seeing that you only give other 
money for it, which money is equivalent to it ? 
The answer is that we do not in fact buy gold with 
gold, or coin with coin or even with money. We 
obtain the gold or coin we want by giving other 
commodities or services in exchange for them. If 
I, a private person, wish to increase my average 
holding of coin from £5 to £10, I cannot do it without 
somehow or other sacrificing, giving up, not money 
but other goods or services. I must work harder 
and earn more, or I must reduce my expenditure, or 
I must reduce my savings and consequently have