Money and trade considered : $b With a proposal for supplying the nation with moneyLaw, John
General
Money and trade considered : $b With a proposal for supplying the nation with money
Law, John
Banks and banking -- Scotland; Currency question -- Great Britain
What buys land, will buy every thing the land produces; and what buys
the product of land, will buy all other goods whether home or foreign.
if wine is brought from France, the merchant designs to lay out his
money on goods, at interest, or on land: the commission does not
receive silver money, so he cannot have a bond from the commission,
unless he give the value in paper; and many of the landed men won’t
take silver for their goods or lands, having occasion for paper to pay
the commission. so the merchant will choose to sell his wines for paper
money, because it will purchase him goods, bonds or lands where silver
money will, being equally valuable: and in cases where silver money
will not.
And this is supposing silver were equally qualified for the use of
money, as land is. but as silver is an uncertain value, and is given
for much more than its value as a metal; and has not all the qualities
necessary in money, nor in so great a degree as paper money: so paper
money will for these other reasons be prefer’d to silver.
Some object that a paper money tho’ upon a good fund, and current in
the country; yet will not be valued abroad, equal to what it were in
Scotland.
The goods of Scotland will always be valued abroad, equal to goods of
the same kind and goodness; and that money tho’ of paper, which buys
goods in Scotland, will buy goods or money in other places. if a 1000
lib. in serges, linen cloth, &c. be worth abroad all charges payed 1300
lib. the merchant who exports such goods, will give a bill for that
money at the par, having 1300 lib. for what cost him a 1000.
When a nation establishes a money, if the money they set up, have a
value equal to what it is made money for, and all the other qualities
necessary in money; they ought to have no regard what value it will
have in other countries. on the contrair, as every country endeavours
by laws to preserve their money, if that people can contrive a money
that will not be valued abroad; they will do what other countries have
by laws endeavour’d in vain.
No nation keeps to silver because it is used in other countries, it is
because they can find nothing so safe and convenient. trade betwixt
nations is carried on by exchange of goods, and if one merchant sends
out goods of a less value, than he brings home; he has money furnish’d
him abroad by another who brings home for a less value than he sent
out: if there is no money due abroad, then the merchant who designed
to import for a greater value than he exported, is restricted; and can
only import equal to his export, which is all the many laws to regulate
trade have been endeavouring.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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