ountry. The only difference is that the amounts involved are much
larger and the protected class much richer and the confiscation of the
fruits of the toiler much greater than under the old system of the corn
laws. When the masses of this country awake as those of America have
awakened to the magnitude of this question, they will brush away this idle
talk that we are trying to restore protection." If Mr. Smith were in
Congress instead of Parliament, what a howl there would be about him as an
anarchist!

It being now the unanimous opinion of English statesmen and financiers
that gold has greatly appreciated, and that such enhancement has already
wrought great evil, the important question arises, Will this process
continue? In the speech already quoted Mr. Giffen says: "I am bound to say
that all the evidence seems to me to point to a continuance of the
appreciation. It is impossible to suppose that the movement will not
extend to other countries. All these facts point to a continued pressure
on gold. The better probability seems to be, that the increase of the
purchasing power of gold will continue from the present time."

The Right Hon. A. J. Balfour, now the head of the British Cabinet, in a
speech delivered at Manchester, October 27, 1892, said: "We want two
things of our currency. We require that it shall be a convenient medium of
exchange between different countries, and we require of it that it shall
be a fair and permanent record of obligation over long periods of time. In
both of these great and fundamental requirements of a currency, our
existing currency totally and lamentably fails." After showing that within
fifteen years the money of Great Britain and Ireland had advanced in
purchasing power no less than 30 or 35 per cent., he went on to say that
of its further progressive appreciation "No living man can prophesy the
limit." A little later he spoke of it as progressing "steadily,
continuously, indefinitely," and closed his remarks on that subject in
these words: "If you will show me a system which gives absolute
permanence, I will take it in preference to any other. But of all
conceivable systems of currency, that system is assuredly the worst which
gives you a standard steadily, continuously, indefinitely appreciating,
and which by that very fact throws a burden on every man of enterprise,
upon every man who desires to promote the agricultural or industrial
resources of the country, and benefits no human be