to make purchases or to pay debts, civilization would go backwards, and universal bankruptcy and ruin would ensue. Suppose that only one-half or one-third of the money available for use should be withdrawn from circulation; even then business would be paralyzed, the money remaining would be hoarded or would be collected in the great money centres, prices would fall, and business men all over the country would be forced into bankruptcy. I think that it must be perfectly apparent that a contraction of credit does not act on the general level of prices in the same manner and to the same extent that a contraction of the volume of money does; that, in fact, it does not act on the general level of prices at all.

I, therefore, conclude that money, and money only, acts on the general level of prices, and that credit does not and cannot act on prices except only as it may increase the rapidity of the circulation of money; and even then it is the greater efficiency of the money, and not the credit, that stimulates prices. Credit may temporarily stimulate the price of the product of some particular industry, but to do this it must attract money from some other industry, and the stimulation will be at the expense of a corresponding depression in prices in the industry from which the money is attracted.

LOS ANGELES, COL.

POINTS IN THE AMERICAN AND FRENCH CONSTITUTIONS COMPARED.

BY NIELS GRÖN.

HERE are several reasons why, particularly in the light

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of what is going on in the two countries, a comparison between certain points of the constitutions of the French and United States republics should be of more than passing interest. Successive ministerial crises in France threaten the stability of the republic; here, while political conventions representing millions of people meet and produce radical platforms, nobody is apprehensive of revolution or trouble. The constitution is a bulwark against sudden change; its wisdom is believed to be guarded by impregnable security against caprice or panic.

One in the Eastern hemisphere, the other in the New World, the two countries are the only great republics; both are watched by monarchies with invidious eyes, and, as before suggested, both have passed through, or are passing through, interesting not to say exciting experiences. American admirers of the republican form of government believe that the cause of human liberty would be seriously injured were the French Republic to cease to exist; they go further, and say that the death-knell of civil freedom would be sounded the moment the American republic became a failure. Something like a crisis is seen in the United States to-day, brought about by a whole series of concomitant causes, such as business depression, bank failures, industrial disputes terminating in strikes and lockouts, Coxey armies, panicky people, and unsettled views regarding commerce and finance, this last cause predominating.

Though France has her difficulties about raising sufficient money to carry on the administration, and an income tax is just as unpopular there as it would be here, nevertheless the chief cause of her trouble is to be traced, not to financial, but to constitutional sources. The country is very rich, and its ministers probably will always find some means of raising enough

money to pay the cost of administration. Quite true, it is a sore point for a proud country which yearns for revenge upon Germany and longs for large colonial possessions, that its population does not increase, while the populations of its enemy, Germany, and of its well-wisher, the United States, go up by leaps and bounds. True, there are economic writers who regard the dearth and even the decrease of population in France as an advantage to the country. But these need not be considered in this inquiry, for it is quite obvious that any country which really aspires to be numbered with the great powers, and effectually wishes to own important colonial possessions, must have a stalwart and increasing people. And it is a real source of weakness that there should yet be in France so many Royalists constantly on the alert and hoping always for a change in the existing form of government.

Happily, on the contrary, no matter how widely the Western American may differ from his friend in the East, or how keenly the ex-Confederate may feel over the "lost cause," the warmblooded son of Kentucky will fight as bravely under the flag of the republic as will his frozen-featured brother from Minnesota, and the dreamy individual who gazes poetically upon the placid waters of Puget Sound will shout as loudly for one country, and one allegiance to its glorious emblem, as will the gilded youth whose republicanism is artistically refreshed by a constant vision of the Statue of Liberty triumphantly standing in New York harbor.

Royalism, conservatism, concentrationism, moderate republicanism, opportunism, radicalism, ultra-radicalism, socialism, and heaven knows how many other "isms" besides, exist in France to-day, and make it hard for any ministry to carry on the government. Numerous disintegrating influences are ever present, and political convictions are seldom sufficiently decided for any ministry to form a stable majority.

Though France has had the experience of two previous experiments in republican forms of government (the one set up in 1792, and the second established in 1848), they were such mere makeshifts and so very short-lived that they could not have taught the country very much of the real genius of republican institutions. The centralization and tyranny of

centuries brought revolt and hatred of the past, but did not prepare the people for self-government; while here the principles of civil liberty, transplanted from the mother country and flourishing in congenial conditions under colonial administration, found apt and natural expression in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The event of republican institutions twice tried in France failed to show that even the leaders understood the principles of liberty as they were understood by the fathers of the American system of government, and enthusiastically adopted by the people, as the crystallization, so to speak, in definite terms, of what they had long enjoyed. Short-sighted acts of tyranny, exercised by George III and his ministers, were regarded, and justly so, as mere accidents of the time and as innovations to be resisted and overcome. The outcome was the vindication of the principles of government founded by the countrymen of King Alfred the Great, their expansion, and the invaluable expression of those principles in the Declaration and the Constitution.

Some of the bravest and best under the French monarchy helped to establish the reign of popular liberty in the United States, and there can be no question but that the French Revolution was accomplished in part as a result of what had been seen and done on this side of the Atlantic on behalf of the civil rights of the people; but the founders of the first republic in France had no complete foundation on which to build a fabric firm and lasting. It was not easy for a venerable European nation, intrenched within its own regal institutions, in shaking off the past to begin a future of popular sovereignty. Much was gained by sweeping away the worst abuses of the past, but reaction came, succeeded, after a long lapse of time, by a second attempt to establish a republic, again to fail, until the collapse of the power of the adventurer whose election to the presidency was the beginning of the end of the republic of 1848, led to the third experiment, the permanent success of which we all hope for.

If much virtue in an "if" the leaders of the first French Republic had been thoroughly masters of and thoroughly imbued with the principles of American liberty, it is possible they might have so instructed and led a bright and capable

people as to lay a sure foundation for the future. But even this modified statement is open to question. While it may be regretted that the American Constitution was not copied in the establishment of the successive French republics, it is by no means certain that this matchless paper would have been so far appreciated in its recognition of the great principles underlying it, as to insure success. Some of the South American republics have the American Constitution, more or less, but are not shining examples of republican success. No one can question that monarchies like the United Kingdom and Germany enjoy a larger diffusion of civil liberty than they.

Taking the French system, however, as it exists to-day, there can be no question that it would be vastly improved by copying the American model. It seems to have been founded with a view to the possibility of restoring the monarchy, and, this being so, the men who created it had no object in studying the American Constitution with a view to preventing those ministerial crises which threaten the destruction of the third republic. It will not do to attribute these crises to the unstable character of the fiery Frenchman, nor can the difficulty be disposed of by saying that a French minister will create a crisis for the sake of a pleasing bon mot or a sprightly paradox. A crisis supposes something outside of, or above, or beyond the ordinary, but French ministerial crises have become so common that they are the laughingstock of the nations, and may be said to be almost the normal condition of the legislative assemblies of France. So long as such critical situations can be thus easily brought about there cannot be that continuity of policy which is essential for carrying out great projects. The prob lem to be solved is a constitutional one, a statement, I think, easily proved true.

Article Six of the constitution of 1875 reveals the real cause of ministerial crises in France: "The ministers are in a body responsible to the Chambers for the general policy of the government, and individually for their personal acts." This article obviously leaves the respective powers of both houses very undefined. Which chamber is the superior? To which of them are the ministers in fact responsible? The ministers may have a majority in the Chamber of Deputies, and may be in a minor