CHAP. IV.Of Altering our Coin.
There are Three Ways of altering our Coin.
I.First, By not altering theSpeciesof the Money, but the Value of it, as making a Crown Piece go for 6 or 7s.
II.Secondly, By diminishing the Matter, but leaving the same Name, and there is no essential Difference between these two Ways.
III.Thirdly, by abasing the Fineness with more than ordinary Allay.
Mr. Lownds’s Report, p. 28. and onwards.
This has been judicially and fully stated by Mr.Lownd’s, who hath shown the undeniable Expediency of keeping up always our Silver Coin, to the present Fineness, as that illustrious and solid Writer Sr.Robert Cottonhad likewise shew’d, and therefore I will say nothing on this Topic, lest I should seem to build upon other Mens Foundations; and I the rather omit it, because all that hath, or can be said, against the raising of the extrinsic Valuation of Coin, above the real Value, is applicable to the abasing of it by Allay, and I fully assent to that Axiom, That the debasing our Money, by Allay, and raising the Value of the Standard, is only doing one and the same thing, (to most Intents and Purposes) by two several Ways or Means.
Suppose then but two Ways of debasing it, by Quantity, or by Quality, and still that is all butdebasingof it,that is, giving it a Value in Name, of more than it hath Intrinsically or Really; for this more than Intrinsic Value, is meerly Extrinsical, supposed, or denominated: in short ’tis a fictitious imaginary Value, and not a real one, above the intrinsic.
Cotton’s Posthuma, p. 287.
And this, to say no more of it, is the reviving of that Monster which Q.Elizab.of Happy Memory so gloried in the subduing; and I doubt we have Monsters enough to deal with, without reviving more.
This is such a devouring Expedient as will immediately swallow down a Part of every Man’s Estate, and at last consume the Nation.
The Price of every thing will rise instead of falling.
For if we were willing to submit to this at home, yet there is such a Combination, between our Foreign and Home Trade, and the Relation between ’em is so inseparable, that let the State give it what Name it will, it will pass for no more at home than it doth abroad, unless the heavy Balance of Trade was on our side the Water; and it will pass for no more abroad than it isreally, notExtrinsicallyor Imaginarily, worth at home.
An Act of Parliament can as well make aScotchPound pass for anEnglish, as half an Ounce of Silver inEnglandto go for an Ounce inHolland, withoutsome Consideration as may Balance the Difference.
Let us call a six peny-Weight of Silver a Crown-Piece, as loud and as long as we will, yet we shall never buy a Pound of Nutmegs with Four of ’em, unless you’ll give theDutchMerchanta Yard of broad-Cloth, or something else into the Bargain.
’Tis a plain case, that when therealValue of Money is lessen’d, the Price of every thing will Rise accordingly, be theExtrinsicValue what it will.
Two Crown-Pieces do not buy a Yard of Cloth, because they contain Ten Shillings, but because they contain almost two Ounces of Silver.
Gold and Silver are the universal Pledges and Security of all Trade, in every Nation, and what’s wanting in their Value must some way or other be made Good, more than in Name or Supposition.
’Tis True, inHollandand elsewhere, they have a base Under-Money, and there is not an Ounce of Silver, perhaps, in as many Stivers or Schillings, as are Equivalent to Ten Shillings in our Money.
But if inHolland, you can exchange so many of them, as have not an Ounce of pure Silver in ’em, for as much of their better Coin, as contains two or three Ounces of good Silver, then doubtless you can buy as good Commodities for those, as you can proportionably for their better Money; as here you might formerly have bought as much Pack-Thread for 48 Tin Farthings as for a Silver Shilling; the Reason is, because there was a recourse; and base Money will have a proportionable Value to Good, in that place where it can be changed into Good; but that’s a very different thing, from debasing the wholeSpeciesof Money throughout the Nation, so that a Man shall be forc’d always to take Under-Money, without any prospect of remedy.
I have nothing to say against an inferior sort of Money; aVerna Nummus,provided there be aRegina Pecuniatoo; and it is indeed a dishonouring him, whose Image and Superscription our Money bears, if we shall make use of our Money to cover over a Fraud; it is a respect we owe to the King, not to suffer his Impress upon any thing but what is really Valuable; and it is for the Nation’s Honour that the vilest of our Coin hath a real Value; but if the Wisdom of theParliamentshou’d think otherwise, yet there is a vast Difference between having the under-Money, and all the Money of the Nation of an Imaginary Value.
The Arguments that may be made use of against such an imaginary Valuation of Money, are perhaps invincible, and almost innumerable; but were there no other but this, I think it might be sufficient without any more; considering our present Case.
We must have an Army inFlandersor a War inEngland.
I would I had nothing to do but to make out that.
How must we pay this Army? The Royal Bank ofEngland, ’tis said, have established there aMintfor Coining of Money to pay the Army; I desire then to know if they will be contented to receive here an undervalued Money, and pay there our Army in Money which theFlemmingswill take; If they do, the Cap lies between theFlemmingsand them, I wo’nt award till I know more.
I rather think that theHollandersandFlemmingswill raise their Money proportionably to what we raise ours, and then in all Respects we are just as we were, till we rise higher than they, and then they higher than we; which will beget perpetual Wranglings and Wars in Trade.
I thought now to have done with this Article, but can’t omit one thing.
Which is that when you raise the Value of Money, you Naturally raise the Value of Silver, which is high enough already; and then indeedEnglandwill become the Best Market for Silver, because all Countries will sell it to us and get sufficiently by the Bargain: they’ll buy good peny-worths of our Commodities, giving us high Valued Silver for it, till we have a glut of Silver and the Price of Silver falls and then I suppose the Intrinsic Value of the Money falls too. Tho’ I confess as bad Consequences may follow too great an Intrinsic Value.
I speak nothing of the Confusions and Jealousie which will arise from hence, but there’s a long Chain of ill Consequences, and therefore I hope it will be allow’d as a Maxime.
That if our Silver Coin hath less than areal Value,it will not answer the Intentions of the Government.