Currency Commissions each dealing SUBJECTIVELY, from the national point of view, with this most important problem of THE MONEY LAWS of each country, and their influence (1) upon every other form of property, and (2) upon the general purchasing power of all incomes of fixed sums of money, but also the calling together, THE MEETING OF THE FIFTH INTERNATIONAL MONETARY CONFERENCE, at London, Paris, or New York, which should deal thoroughly, exhaustively, co-operatively, and OBJECTIVELY, from the international point of view, with THE EXISTING UNSTABLE MONETARY CONDITIONS which periodically arrest the expansion and development of the industries and commerce of all the nations of the West.

The expansion and development of the industries and commerce of the nations must be continuous and progressive, up to the limits imposed upon us by the limits of the physical order, so that the ever-increasing populations may be regularly and continuously incorporated into the economic life of the nations, and thereby be enabled to earn for themselves the regular incomes needed to satisfy their just and reasonable natural and social requirements.

By the establishment of such favourable economic conditions, something helpful may be done towards saving civilisation from THE PERIL OF THE UNEMPLOYED.

The Medieval Christian West sometimes ALTERED THE MONEY LAWS of the nations, so that all the then existing inter-temporary transactions were modified in favour of the debtor classes, but AT THE EXPENSE OF THE CREDITOR CLASSES.

The Modern Scientific West, in establishing Gold Monometallism, has ALTERED THE MONEY LAWS of the nations, so that all current inter-temporary transactions which existed prior to 1871-73 have been modified in favour of the creditor classes, but AT THE EXPENSE OF THE DEBTOR CLASSES.

"YE SHALL DO NO UNRIGHTEOUSNESS IN JUDGMENT."

In Society to-day, under the Wage Competitive System and the Single Standard Money System, there is the EXCLUSIVE APPROPRIATION of the whole of the Profit or

Surplus Wealth, resulting from the co-operation of all classes of working men, directly and immediately, in so far as it relates to contemporary transactions (a) by Entrepreneurs or Employers who undertake to pay in advance fixed sums of money, as value in exchange, for the use of capital and for the services of labour, and in full satisfaction of all the claims of capitalists and labourers upon the whole of the wealth produced and distributed by the co-operative efforts of all classes of working-men; and indirectly and ultimately, in so far as it relates to intertemporary transactions (b) by Capitalists, who are the CREDITOR CLASSES of the nation, as one of the results of the operation of the legal tender provisions of section 6 of the Coinage Act, 1870-33 Vict. cap. 10-which secures the intermittent but permanent APPRECIATION OF MONEY, thereby giving to Capitalists, THE CREDITOR CLASSES, an intermittently but permanently increasing control over all articles of physical wealth, over all commodities, as the progress of the economic arts-industrial, commercial and financial efficiency-reduces cost of production, and as abundance reduces price.

This exclusive appropriation of the whole of the Profit or Surplus Wealth, directly and immediately (a) by Entrepreneurs or Employers; indirectly and ultimately (b) by Capitalists or the Creditor Classes, is PREDATORY in its influence upon all the other classes of working-men, and so, as a consequence, we find, simultaneously, everywhere, UNEMPLOYMENT of both capital and labour; we find "Hard Times and "Trade Depressions" in the midst of ABUNDANCE of all kinds of physical wealth; we behold (1) the exploitation of employees by employers; (2) the suffocation of debtors by creditors; and (3) the depletion of producers by consumers-modified progressively by the continuous development of THE TRUST.

We know that every department and function of Society groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now, and in very truth, under the combined influences of the Wage Competitive System and the Single Standard

Money System, we behold the strangulation of business by the APPRECIATION OF MONEY; we behold sOCIETY DEVOURING

ITSELF.

This EXCLUSIVE AND PREDATORY APPROPRIATION of the whole of the Profit or Surplus Wealth by the Entrepreneur and Creditor Classes of Society is USURY;1 and this USURY is the EFFICIENT CAUSE of the periodic recurrence of “Hard Times" and "Trade Depressions" in the midst of Abundance.

In attacking USURY we continue to fight the good fight against the Crime of all the Ages, and the Victory is with us.

Here and now, in our midst, and around us on every side, are “the weary and the heavy-laden" ones, those who endure all things, who suffer all things-mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, daughters and sons, sisters and brothers—all of them men and women of like passions unto ourselves, PERISHING, because they have not the wherewithal to procure the necessaries of life for themselves and for their dear ones; PERISHING because they cannot obtain work to earn the means of procuring a sufficiency of the necessaries of even physical existence; IDLING in the marketplace because no man hath hired them; IDLING because, we are told, there is no work for them to do in this wide, wide world of want and woe! But there are some of us who still believe that THERE IS WORK ENOUGH FOR ALL MEN. "The human body is a machine so constructed that work is a necessity for its continued existence and well-being."

"2

"If a brother or sister be naked, and in lack of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled; and yet ye give them not the things needful to the body; what doth it profit?

"3

'Mira came to ask what shall she do with the poor Genesee woman who had hired herself to work for her at a shilling a day, and, now sickening, was like to be bed

1 "I pray you, let us leave off this USURY. Restore, I pray you, to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their oliveyards, and their houses, also THE HUNDREDTH PART of the money, and of the corn, the wine, and the oil, THAT YE EXACT OF THEM" (Nehemiah v. 10-11). 2 Robeson Roose, M.P. (Fortnightly Review, February 1886).

3 St. James ii. 15-16.

ridden on her hands. Should she keep her, or should she dismiss her? But Benedict said: 'Why ask? One thing will clear itself as the thing to be done, and not another, when the hour comes. Is it a question, whether to put her into the street? Just as much whether to thrust the little Jenny on your arm into the street. The milk and meal you give the beggar will fatten Jenny. Thrust the woman out, and you thrust your babe out of doors, whether it so seem to you or not.'

" 1

Again, as to the first of the children of men, in the beginning of the ages, Humanity, at this time, asketh each of us, the children of men: Where is thy brother? Where is thy sister? And although she may be "possessed with seven devils," and although he may have "spent all his substance in riotous living," yet is he still our brother, yet is she still our sister; and they should not be permitted to perish utterly, but rather should we endeavour to rescue them, and to save them, according to the utmost of our available resources. They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick."

The apostles and prophets of this BOURGEOISE REGIME have used the blinding pride, the deafening arrogance, and the heartless indifference displayed by the monarchy and by the aristocracy, during transitional periods in the life of Society, as illustrations to point many a moral, to adorn many a tale; and we, of the bourgeoise regime, who have received an inheritance from these apostles and prophets, have always boasted that we are "eminently practical men.' We have affirmed that unity of material interests is one of the practicable guarantees of peace and progress.

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We have professed to believe that it is possible to make an end of international "foreign" wars by means of international commercial treaties, providing facilities for the expansion of international trade, for the international exchange of commodities; aided by international Courts of Arbitration for the settlement and determination of international disputes.

1 "The Conduct of Life"-Worship, p. 206 (R. W. Emerson).

We, the "eminently practical men" of this first decade of the twentieth century of the Christian Era, we, who are to-day the rulers of the rulers of the Earth, will soon be put to the test. Will we know the time of our visitation ? Will we know the things that belong unto our peace? Or will we too be blind, deaf, unfeeling, heartless, discerning only the face of the sky without being able to comprehend the signs of the times? "Those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem ? "1 No, BUT THEY PERISHED BECAUSE THEY HAPPENED TO BE PASSING AT THE TIME THE TOWER FELL!

Think we that those monarchs and aristocrats against whom revolutionists in the past have cried "havoc, and let slip the dogs of war"-civil war-overthrowing monarchical and aristocratic institutions, slaughtering monarchs and aristocrats and the men and women who were brave enough to stand by and to defend them and the institutions which they then regarded as being excellent, were prouder, more arrogant, more unfeeling and heartless than all the monarchs and aristocrats who had preceded them, because they suffered such overthrowings and slaughterings? No, BUT

THEY PERISHED BECAUSE THEY HAPPENED TO BE GOVERNING AT THE TIMES OF THE REVOLUTIONS!

Are we, of the BOURGEOISE REGIME, equal to the task of harmonising and reconciling the material interests (a) of Entrepreneurs or Employers and their Employees? (b) of Creditors and Debtors, Lenders and Borrowers? Do we believe that it is practically possible to make an end of "Strikes" and Lock-outs," of "Trade Depressions" and Bankruptcies, and all the other well-known and similar forms of avoidable economic war and waste? If, within the nation, we cannot do these things which are least, how can we ever expect to be able, between the nations, to do THOSE things which are GREATEST ?

Are we equal to the task of continuing to build upon 'But if

JUSTICE THE ETERNAL FOUNDATION OF SOCIETY ?

1 St. Luke xiii. 4.

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