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Page 26
"All this is indisputable; it is now fully in the public view; yet
not even an attempt is being made in Parliament, or even out of
it, to bring about an equitable readjustment of the conditions
which are proving so disastrous in other nations, conditions too
that are imposed under the provisions of statutes enacted as
measures of protection for the tenants. The Irish Land Acts of
1881, 1885, and 1891 have, nevertheless--as a result of the
increased and increasing value of our present unbalanced and
consequently untrustworthy monetary standard of value--become
fruitful sources of difficulty, and may very soon become fruitful
sources of disaster, to those for whose benefit they were
intended."
Again, referring to the importance of some remedy, possibly that which
bimetallism might provide, he says:
"The adoption of bimetallism or of some equivalent remedy, if
there be any equivalent remedy, is, I am convinced, a matter of
imperative necessity; that is, if the agricultural tenants of
Ireland--and I do not limit this to Ireland--are to be saved from
otherwise irretrievable ruin. If things go on as they are, even
the excellent land purchase scheme, which is associated with the
name of Lord Ashbourne, may become, before many years are over, a
source of widespread disaster to the tenants who have purchased
under it."
Again, in view of the steady and dangerous increase in the burdens of the
obligations entered into under either of the acts referred to, by reason
of the continued enhancement in the price of gold, he says:
"The bimetallists may be right or they may be wrong; but, at all
events, if they are right, then it is noticeably plain that the
Irish tenants who have the misfortune to have their rents fixed
for terms of ten or fifteen years under the Act of 1881, and in
much the same way the Irish tenant purchasers who have the
misfortune to have found themselves saddled with the obligation of
making annual payments fixed for forty-nine years, are simply
sliding down an inclined plane with bankruptcy awaiting them at
the bottom of it."
And again:
"The point, as I have already stated it, is that so long as our
monetary system remains what it is, every one who is placed under
an obligation to make yearly payments of a fixed amount of money
is thereby placed under a burden which is growing heavier from
year to year."
In discussing the question of variability in the purchasing power of gold,
he says:
"The reason of the liability to fluctuation in the purchasing
power of the sovereign is plain: When gold rises in value a larger
quantity of any other commodity, say of corn, of meat, of butter,
or of cloth, will have to be given in exchange for any given
quantity of gold, such, for example, as the quantity contained in
a sovereign. On the other hand, when gold falls in value a smaller
quantity of any other commodity, say of corn, of meat, of butter,
or of cloth, will suffice to obtain in exchange any given quantity
of gold, such as that which is contained in the sovereign. It is
an obvious inference that our gold coinage, however useful as a
medium of exchange, does not furnish us with a standard of value
fixed and unalterable. It does not furnish us, for example, with
such a standard as the yard is of length or as the pound troy is
of weight. The popular notion that the pound sterling constitutes
a fixed standard of value is merely a popular delusion. The sole
foundation for that delusion manifestly is that in these countries
the values of all commodities are commonly stated in terms of a
pound sterling; in other words, in pounds, shillings, and pence; a
shilling being a twentieth part of the pound, and a penny the
twelfth part of that again.
"The natural result of this method of enhancing the value of
commodities other than gold is that when prices rise or fall the
impression is conveyed to a superficial observer that it is the
value of other things that changes, the value of the sovereign
remaining fixed."
Under this head he says again:
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