fforts
at producing what the economist calls "utilities," against those of
the gold miner.

If, therefore, the latter successfully calls to his aid mechanical
giants who render his work easier and who enable him to throw into the
world's markets a larger proportion of gold for a given amount of
effort, the result must be that the price of gold must fall, or, in
other words, the prices of general commodities must rise. If, on the
other hand, all other industries have been subjected to the like
improved conditions of working, the effect must be to that extent to
balance the rise and keep prices comparatively steady.

From this point of view it will be seen that the interests of all
those who desire to see a rise in general prices are to a large extent
bound up in the improvement of methods for the extraction of gold. The
question of cheap power does not by any means monopolise the data upon
which such a problem can be provisionally decided; and yet it may be
broadly stated that in the main the increased output of gold in the
future depends upon the more economical production and application of
power. Measured against other commodities which also depend mainly
upon the same factor, gold will probably remain very steady; while, in
contrast with those things which require for the production taste and
skill rather than mere brute force or mechanical power, gold will fall
in value. In other words, the classes of articles and services
depending upon the exercise of man's higher faculties of skill, taste,
and mental power will rise in price.

Getting gold practically means, in modern times, crushing stone. This
statement is subject to fewer and fewer exceptions from one decade to
another, according as the alluvial deposits in the various
gold-producing countries become more or less completely worked out. A
partial revival of alluvial mining has been brought about through the
application of the giant dredger to cheapening the process of
extracting exceedingly small quantities of gold from alluvial drift
and dirt. Yet on the whole it will be found that the gold-mining
industry, almost all the world over, is getting down to the bed-rock
of ore-treatment by crushing and by simple methods of separation. Thus
practically we may say that the cost of gold is the cost of power in
those usually secluded localities where the precious metal is found in
quantities sufficient to tempt the investment of capital.

From this it may be infer