from the money that he takes in payment for his services, and pays out in payment for the goods that he needs, is efficiency in providing him with what he wants. As long as a piece of paper will buy things for him, he is not much cheered by the thought that he can, if he wants to, turn it into gold, which he would never want to do, except in order to turn the gold then, or on some "rainy day," into something else that he wanted. All this is quite true and was very sensibly recognized by most of us in the early days of the war when we were asked to help to win the war by paying all our gold into our banks and using the new Treasury notes instead, so that the gold might be sent abroad to buy things wanted for the fighting men.
Nevertheless, the patriotism of the public was promptly punished for the readiness with which it virtually renounced its right to demand gold and so gave the Government the power to print as much paper as it liked. Then the man in the street found out that money has not only to be freely convertible into goods, but must also, to do its work soundly, remain fairly steady in value and must, if possible, be convertible into the same quantity of goods to-day, and a week hence, and a year hence,
