First then, it will be agreed that it is far easier to make a price rise, than to make it fall. I believe I might take this for granted, without giving the reason for it. At all times, a price which has long stood low, may be made to rise; but it is next to impossible to make a price which has long stood high, to fall in the same manner. Here is the reason: Let me suppose the yard of an extensive manufacture which occupies a number of hands, to be worth 100 grains. The workmen here live nearly at the same expence, and I suppose them to live upon the profits of their work, when they sell at 100 grains a yard. The price rises to 120; here is an additional profit of 20 grains. If a sudden turn should diminish the demand which raised the price of the merchandize, it will fall to the old rate without much difficulty; the workmen will consider the 20 grains addition as a precarious profit upon which they cannot reckon: but let the price of 120 grains remain uniformly for some years, the 20 grains will cease to be precarious profits; they will consolidate, as we have called it, into the value of the merchandize; because the workmen, by having long enjoyed them, will have bettered their way of living; and as they are many, and live uniformly, any thing which obliges them to retrench a part of their habitual expence, is supposed to deprive them of necessaries. [Sidenote: and are preserved upon articles of home consumption,] This is sufficient, as a hint, upon a subject which branches out into an infinity of different relations, not at all to the present purpose. But it is very much to the purpose to shew how the imposition of coinage must, on many occasions, have the effect of attaching the price of commodities to the denominations of the coin, instead of preserving them attached to the grains of the metals which compose them, as in theory they ought to be. When wars, _e. g._ occasion a wrong balance to continue for many years against a nation, this keeps coin at par with bullion for a long time. Is it not very natural, that during that time manufacturers should estimate their work according to the coin, and not as formerly, according to the bullion? The consequence of this is, that when peace returns, and when coin begins to rise above the price of bullion, the manufacturers stick to the denominations of the coin, instead of descending in value (as they ought to do by theory) along with the bullion. What is the consequence of this? It is that the prices of manufactures _for home consumption_, and of _commodities peculiar to the country_, stand their ground; that is, prices do not descend, and cannot be brought down by merchants. [Sidenote: but are torn away by foreign competition for articles of exportation.]