Note 1 — Chapter IX · War with the Cannibals, and What Came of It.

When, on the other hand, the fluctuations in the purchasing power of the currency became limited, the insurance percentage added to price became also limited, and followed a somewhat general rule. Thus, when a clothing-dealer sold goods on three months’ credit, for currency whose purchasing power was so much less than gold that it took one hundred and fifteen of currency to buy one hundred in gold, he added five per cent. to his sale price, or he bet that the depreciation of currency at the end of three months would be indicated by one hundred and twenty for gold; while for a credit longer than three months he bet that the risk of depreciation would be greater, and added, to cover this risk, an average of ten per cent. to his price. If now, at the end of three months, it required one hundred and twenty-five in currency to buy one hundred in gold, the dealer lost five per cent. through the payment of his debt. But if, on the other hand, the fluctuation of the purchasing power of the currency was the other way, and it required at the end of the three months only one hundred and ten of currency to buy a hundred in gold, he made ten per cent. over and above his ordinary and legitimate profit, while an equivalent burden or loss fell on the consumers.1 As the dealers were shrewd, the result of this betting and insurance was rarely loss, and so constantly profit, that some dealers after a while came to regard the obtaining of this species of profit as the main thing for which all business was instituted; while others, more clear-headed and discerning, concluded that the wisest and easiest way to get rich was to bet directly on the varying quantity of currency which it would take from day to day to buy the same quantity of gold, or other valuable commodities, instead of attempting to do the same thing indirectly, through the agency of stores, stocks of goods, clerks, books, credits, and the like. The last, accordingly, wound up their business, and, in the language of the day, “went on to the street,” and made their living by selling on time what they did not possess, and buying on time what they never expected to receive, and reckoning profit or loss according to the difference in prices growing out of the fluctuations of the currency between the day of buying or selling, and the day of receiving or delivering. In short, as with the magic fiddle in the fairy tale, which, when played upon, made every body dance, no matter whether in the brambles or on the plain, so the use on the island of a currency which continually fluctuated in purchasing power, because it was not a constant equivalent of any thing, made every body gamble that could; some because they liked to, and others because they had to, to protect themselves from losses. The masses who could not conveniently gamble tried to protect themselves by asking high prices in return for their services, or by giving less in proportion to what they received;2 but, in the long run, they learned by hard experience that they were not as well off as they expected to be; and that if one effect of an overabundant, non-equivalent-to-any-thing currency was to stimulate production, another and greater effect of it was to unequally distribute the results of production, transferring from those who had little to those who had much, and thus making the rich richer, and the poor poorer.