Flint's Letters from America, 1818-1820Flint, James, active 19th century
History
Flint's Letters from America, 1818-1820
Flint, James, active 19th century
Ohio River Valley -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
Farther, nothing can be more plain than the necessity of abridging
the quantity of paper money in circulation; and when this is done to
a sufficient extent, foreigners will find it impossible to procure
dollars here on terms so easy as formerly. Were money rendered so
scarce, that it would command three or four times the quantity of the
necessaries of life that it does now, foreign labour would be excluded,
and the American labourer, with a third or a fourth part of his present
nominal wages, would find the only changes in his condition to be
a greater demand for his work, and an immediate enlargement of his
resources. The farmer would eventually find the means of increasing
his produce, and the advantage of a home market; and capitalists now
engaged in foreign commerce, would find employment for their funds in
manufactures. Fortunately the impolitic course latterly {243} pursued
is leading to its own correction. Specie is seldom to be seen in the
ordinary transactions of business, except in small worn pieces of
inferior denominations, and cut money, from which a portion of the
metal has been fraudulently abstracted. The deficiency in weight
prevents this part of the currency from being exported in direct
payments, and nothing but the recent depreciation of paper seems to
prevent these remnants of silver from being disposed of as bullion.
In former times, when Europe furnished a market for almost every
kind of produce, the strongest inducements to agricultural industry
prevailed. The fertility and the vast extent of the United States
enabled cultivators to increase in numbers, in a manner that would have
produced a disagreeable competition, in a more thickly peopled country;
but the recent state of commercial affairs shows that America is not
wide enough to prevent the inconveniences of competition in a narrow
market. The necessity of a new distribution of pursuits becomes every
day more apparent, as without it the people cannot enjoy the articles
of comfort and luxury hitherto imported. Some of the most popular
newspapers now advocate the cause of manufactures, and several public
societies take a deep interest in promoting the internal prosperity
of the country. The society at Philadelphia for promoting American
manufactures,[130] have in some of their papers reasoned in such a
manner as to prove that they possess a comprehensive knowledge of the
subject, both of its effects on national wealth, and of manufacturing
business. The resolutions of the society lately instituted at
Cincinnati for the promotion of agriculture, manufactures, and domestic
economy, are subjoined, {244} as a mark of the patriotic spirit that
now prevails.[131] The committee of this society consists of people of
the greatest wealth and influence in the city and neighbourhood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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