Where a country's exports exceed its imports it might seem at first sight that there would be a tendency for that country to continue to import gold, to balance the account. A moment's reflection, however, will make plain the fact that there is also a powerful countervailing tendency at work. As gold continues to be shipped into a country, the supply of money in that country increases and prices rise. With prices higher in this country than in foreign countries, the buying of our commodities by foreigners will fall off, while the purchasing of foreign commodities by our merchants will increase. The pendulum will continue thus to swing until our imports exceed our exports. But as we export gold from our country the money supply decreases and prices fall. Our country, then, is a good market in which foreigners may purchase what they need at a low price. The result of this influence will be that the pendulum will swing in the other direction and that our exports will catch up with our imports. The consequence of this is that there is no danger that we shall have too much or too little gold in the country, or that we shall continue to export it to such an extent as to sacrifice our necessary supply of it. Of course, if our country is a gold mining country, it will be natural for us to export gold continuously, but we are no worse off by reason of this exportation than we should be by reason of the exportation of any other commodity. In a word, each country which is engaged in commerce with other commercial countries of the world will tend to keep on hand the amount of gold which is needs, provided, of course, that it does not drive the gold away by careless fiat-money legislation.