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MONEY 
133 
bank rate would be called for. At the 
present time in more than one country the 
problem of the reserve is engaging the 
attention of statesmen, bankers, and other 
business men. 
The manner in which banks in the ordinary 
course of their business, which may be tersely 
described as dealing in credit, can augment or 
diminish the quantity of money, broadly 
regarded, in a country, is of particular import 
ance in relation to a curious phenomenon 
known as the trade cycle. Trade does not 
flow along uninterruptedly in any modern 
community. It has its ups and downs even 
if it is viewed in the mass. Many of the 
fluctuations in business briskness, which one 
would naturally expect, take place in different 
industries at about the same time, as one 
would not so readily expect. In other words 
fluctuations in trade tend to synchronise in the 
different industries, so that at any one time the 
business of a country in the aggregate tends to 
be depressed or the reverse. This synchron 
ism may be accounted for as follows. The 
business of a modern community makes up an 
organic whole, every part of which is directly 
or indirectly connected with every other 
part. If engineers are slack the demand for