The evils which we have already seen arising from the earlier issues were now aggravated; but the most curious thing evolved out of all this chaos was a _new system of political economy_. In speeches, newspapers and pamphlets about this time, we begin to find it declared that, after all, a depreciated currency is a blessing; that gold and silver form an unsatisfactory standard for measuring values: that it is a good thing to have a currency that will not go out of the kingdom and which separates France from other nations: that thus shall manufacturers be encouraged; that commerce with other nations may be a curse, and hindrance thereto may be a blessing; that the laws of political economy however applicable in other times, are not applicable to this particular period, and, however operative in other nations, are not now so in France; that the ordinary rules of political economy are perhaps suited to the minions of despotism but not to the free and enlightened inhabitants of France at the close of the eighteenth century; that the whole state of present things, so far from being an evil is a blessing. All these ideas, and others quite as striking, were brought to the surface in the debates on the various new issues. [39] Within four months came another report to the Assembly as ingenious as those preceding. It declared: "Your committee are thoroughly persuaded that the amount of the circulating medium before the Revolution was greater than that of the _assignats_ today: but at that time the money circulated slowly and now it passes rapidly so that one thousand million _assignats_ do the work of two thousand millions of specie." The report foretells further increase in prices, but by some curious jugglery reaches a conclusion favorable to further inflation. Despite these encouragements the _assignats_ nominally worth 100 _livres_ had fallen, at the beginning of February, 1792, to about 60 _livres_, and during that month fell to 53 _livres_. [40] In March, Clavière became minister of finance. He was especially proud of his share in the invention and advocacy of the _assignats_, and now pressed their creation more vigorously than ever, and on April 30th, of the same year, came the fifth great issue of paper money, amounting to three hundred millions: at about the same time Cambon sneered ominously at public creditors as "rich people, old financiers and bankers." Soon payment was suspended on dues to public creditors for all amounts exceeding ten thousand _francs_. This was hailed by many as a measure in the interests of the poorer classes of people, but the result was that it injured them most of all. Henceforward, until the end of this history, capital was quietly taken from labor and locked up in all the ways that financial ingenuity could devise. All that saved thousands of laborers in France from starvation was that they were drafted off into the army and sent to be killed on foreign battlefields.