Page:Bankers and Credit (1924).pdf/257

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Chapter VIII
The Next Step

For purposes of this merely popular discussion, there is no need to go more deeply into the Quantity Theory of Money than to recognize that if money, by which we mean any coin, or bit of paper, or other article that is commonly taken in payment, is multiplied and circulated faster than goods come forward for sale, the general level of prices will go up and vice versa. From this it is any easy and alluring jump to the conclusion that changes in the general price level need no longer happen, and that by regulation of the quantity of money the price level can be kept steady or moved up and down to any point that we like to choose. If so we have found what the old critics of our gold standards have for many years been seeking and we have got, in regulated paper, a standard that shall be as trustworthy as a yard measure. Mr. Kitson—or his particular embodiment which sought for stability rather