s
will be in eager rivalry with each other in seeking out means of
reducing costs or--what is the same thing--increasing the product of a
day's labor. Under the conditions here supposed, the trust will not be
able to exterminate a really efficient competitor, and it will feel
the stimulus of his rivalry in a way that will force it to be alert
and enterprising in seeking and using new devices for economical
production. The trust and its American competitor will alike feel the
stimulus of the foreigner's efforts to surpass them both in methods of
efficient production; and the outcome of it all will be a greater
degree of progress--a more dynamic industrial world--than there is any
hope of realizing while foreigners are excluded from our markets even
when prices are there extortionate. Prices will be extortionate so
long as the trusts are checked only by local rivals and are allowed to
club these rivals into submissiveness. Keeping the foreigner away by
competing fairly with him is what we should desire; but barring him
forcibly out, even when prices mount to extravagant levels, helps to
fasten on this country the various evils which are included under the
ill-omened term _monopoly_; and among the worst of these evils are a
weakening of dynamic energy and a reduction of progress.

CHAPTER XXIX

LEADING FACTS CONCERNING MONEY

_Dynamic Qualities of Money._--The question concerning money which,
for the purposes of the present treatise, it is most important to
answer is whether general prosperity can be increased or impaired by
manipulating the volume of it. Is money a dynamic agent, and can it be
so regulated as to induce economic progress? These questions require
careful answers.

_Accepted Facts concerning Money._--We may accept without argument
the conclusion that both theory and experience have reached concerning
the superiority of gold and silver over other materials of which
a currency can be made. They possess the universally recognized
utility which makes them everywhere in demand. They have the
"imperishability," the "portability," and the "divisibility" which are
needed, and when made into coins, they have the "cognizability" by
which they can, more readily than many other things, be identified and
distinguished from cheap imitations. There remain to be settled the
questions whether an expanding volume of currency is necessary for
prosperity, and whether the expansion can better be secured by using
tw