By this method of imposing coinage, all the advantages reaped by France may be reaped by England. The bullion will be allowed to fall as low as with them, when trade is favourable. If it rises, upon a wrong balance, the mint need not be stopped, in case coin be found wanting for the uses of the state; and when that necessary demand is satisfied, the mint price may be reduced again. I do not see how the value of the pound sterling can be anywise influenced by this plan of imposing coinage: because the imposition is not arbitrary; nor can it either add to or take from the mass of the metals appointed by statute to enter into the coin. The only possible influence coinage can have upon the value of the pound sterling, is by lowering the price of commodities. If it has this effect, I still agree that it is the same thing as if an addition were made to the metals in the coin. Experience alone will resolve the question: and if by this it is found that prices are not affected by it, then we may safely declare, that no variation has been occasioned in the value of the money-unit, and consequently no injury done to any interest within the state. This proposition, however, requires some limitations. The prices of commodities, certainly, will not be affected _immediately_ by the imposition of coinage, in the way it has been proposed to lay it on; but I do not say that, upon some occasions, they may not be affected by slow degrees. When the balance of trade at any time has stood long favourable for England; when the coin has remained long considerably above the price of bullion; and when, consequently, the mint has been well employed; then the value of commodities, as has been said, may become influenced by the operations of foreign commerce, and be sunk in their price. Yet even here this consequence is by no means certain; for this reason, that what turns the balance of trade in favour of a nation is the demand which foreign markets make for her commodities: now this demand, as it raises the value of her coin above her bullion, so it raises the price of her commodities, by increasing foreign competition to acquire them. These combinations are very intricate, and more properly belong to the doctrine of commerce than to that which we are now upon. I have thrown them in here, for the sake of extending the present theory a little farther, and for enabling us to account for appearances which may happen upon the imposition of coinage, supposing it should be thought proper to make the experiment. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAP. V. _How an Experiment may be made to discover with Certainty the real Effects of the Imposition of Coinage._