This self-complacent rubbish is quite fitting for this pillar of the
 Currency Principle. First, the brilliant discovery that bank-notes or gold are
 means of buying something, and that they are not borrowed for their own sake.
 And this is advanced to explain that the rate of interest is regulated —
 but by what? By the demand and supply of commodities, which heretofore was
 known to regulate only the market-prices of commodities. However, very
 different rates of interest are compatible with the same market-prices of
 commodities. — But now this cunning. He is confronted with the correct
 remark: "But interest is paid for the money," which, of course, contains the
 implication: "What has interest received by the banker, who does not deal in
 commodities at all, to do with these commodities? And do not manufacturers
 receive money at the same rate of interest, although they invest it in widely
 different markets, hence in markets with widely different conditions of demand
 and supply for the commodities used in production?" All that this celebrated
 genius has to say in reply to these questions is that if the manufacturer buys
 cotton on credit "the difference between the ready-money price and the credit
 price at the time at which he is to pay for it is the measure of the interest."
 Quite the contrary. The prevailing rate of interest whose regulation the great
 intellect Norman was asked to explain is the measure of the difference between
 the cash price and the credit price until payment is due. First the cotton is
 to be sold at its cash price, and this is determined by the market-price,
 itself regulated by the state of supply and demand. Say the price £1,000. This
 concludes the transaction between the manufacturer and the cotton broker so far
 as buying and selling is concerned. Now comes a second transaction. This is one
 between lender and borrower. The value of £1,000 is advanced to the
 manufacturer in cotton, and he has to repay it in money, say, in three months.
 And three months' interest for £1000, determined by the market rate of
 interest, makes up the extra charge over and above the cash price. The price of
 cotton is determined by supply and demand. But the price of the advanced value
 of cotton, of £1,000 advanced for three months, is determined by the rate of
 interest. And this fact, that cotton is thus transformed into money-capital,
 proves to Mr. Norman that interest would exist even if there had been no money.
 If there were no money at all, there would certainly be no general rate of
 interest.