of rude, and with almost all sorts of manufactured
produce, for a smaller quantity of
gold and silver than what they themselves can
either raise or make them for at home. The
tax and prohibition operate in two different
ways. They not only lower very much the
value of the precious metals in Spain and Portugal,
but by detaining there a certain quantity
of those metals which would otherwise
flow over other countries, they keep up their
value in those other countries somewhat above
what it otherwise would be, and thereby give
those countries a double advantage in their
commerce with Spain and Portugal. Open
the flood-gates, and there will presently be
less water above, and more below the dam-head,
and it will soon come to a level in both
places. Remove the tax and the prohibition,
and as the quantity of gold and silver will diminish
considerably in Spain and Portugal,
so it will increase somewhat in other countries;
and the value of those metals, their proportion
to the annual produce of land and labour,
will soon come to a level, or very near
to a level, in all. The loss which Spain and
Portugal could sustain by this exportation of
their gold and silver, would be altogether nominal
and imaginary. The nominal value of
their goods, and of the annual produce of
their land and labour, would fall, and would
be expressed or represented by a smaller quantity
of silver than before; but their real value
would be the same as before, and would be
sufficient to maintain, command, and employ
the same quantity of labour. As the nominal
value of their goods would fall, the real value of
what remained of their gold and silver would
rise, and a smaller quantity of those metals
would answer all the same purposes of commerce
and circulation which had employed a
greater quantity before. The gold and silver
which would go abroad would not go abroad
for nothing, but would bring back an equal
value of goods of some kind or other. Those
goods, too, would not be all matters of mere
luxury and expense, to be consumed by idle
people, who produce nothing in return for
their consumption. As the real wealth and
revenue of idle people would not be augmented
by this extraordinary exportation of gold
and silver, so neither would their consumption
be much augmented by it. Those goods
would probably, the greater part of them, and
certainly some part of them, consist in materials,
tools, and provisions, for the employment
and maintenance of industrious people,
who would reproduce, with a profit, the full
value of their consumption. A part of the
dead stock of the society would thus be turned
into active stock, and would put into motion
a greater quantity of industry than had been
employed before. The annual produce of
their land and labour would immediately be
augmented a little, and in a few years would
probably be augmented a great deal; their
industry being thus relieved from one of the
most oppressive burdens which it at present
labours under.
The bounty upon the exportation of corn
necessarily operates exactly in the same way
as this absurd policy of Spain and Portugal.
Whatever be the actual state of tillage, it renders
our corn somewhat dearer in the home
market than it otherwise would be in that
state, and somewhat cheaper in the foreign;
and as the average money price of corn regulates,
more or less, that of all other commodities,
it lowers the value of silver considerably
in the one, and tends to raise it a little in the
other. It enables foreigners, the Dutch in
particular, not only to eat our corn cheaper
than they otherwise could do, but sometimes
to eat it cheaper than even our own people
can do upon the same occasions; as we are
assured by an excellent authority, that of Sir
Matthew Decker. It hinders our own workmen
from furnishing their goods for so small
a quantity of silver as they otherwise might
do, and enables the Dutch to furnish theirs
for a smaller. It tends to render our manufactures
somewhat dearer in every market, and
theirs somewhat cheaper, than they otherwise
would be, and consequently to give their industry
a double advantage over our own.
The bounty, as it raises in the home market,
not so much the real, as the nominal
price of our corn; as it augments, not the
quantity of labour which a certain quantity of
corn can maintain and employ, but only the
quantity of silver which it will exchange for;
it discourages our manufactures, without rendering
any considerable service, either to our
farmers or country gentlemen. It puts, indeed,
a little more money into the pockets of
both, and it will perhaps be somewhat difficult
to persuade the greater part of them that
this is not rendering them a very considerable
service. But if this money sinks in its value,
in the quantity of labour, provisions, and
home-made commodities of all different kinds
which it is capable of purchasing, as much as
it rises in its quantity, the service will be little
more than nominal and imaginary.
There is, perhaps, but one set of men in
the whole commonwealth to whom the bounty
either was or could be essentially serviceable.
These were the corn merchants, the exporters
and importers of corn. In years of plenty,
the bounty necessarily occasioned a greater
exportation than would otherwise have taken
place; and by hindering the plenty of the one
year from relieving the scarcity of another, it
occasioned in years of scarcity a greater importation
than would otherwise have been necessary.
It increased the business of the corn
merchant in both; and in the years of scarcity,
it not only enabled him to import a greater
quantity, but to sell it for a better price,
and consequently with a greater profit, than
he could otherwise have made, if the plenty