People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 October 1894 — Universal Depreciation. [ARTICLE]

Universal Depreciation.

When people see that general prices are falling and think it an advantage, they do not perceive the enormously important consequences lying concealed in the fall. They do not perceive the converse of the proposition, namely, that what is really happening is that money is becoming dearer. To say that prices of property and commodities are coming down is to say that money is going up. The only classes benefited by this—and they are benefited unjustly—are the classes that have lent money at interest and are living on fixed incomes. Their only “products” being bonds, mortgages and money, they gladly see these rising in value by the fall of general prices, to the extreme detriment of industry and commerce. To my mind, therefore, the very keystone of the arch of national progress is a suffiiency of money, and for this country a “sufficiency” means a constantly increasing quantity. Without such increase all the factors that go to make up this great arch mu§t tumble in confusion to the ground.—Senator John P. Jones. •