第15章

I think this the more concerns us, because Foreigners are interested in our publick Securities and Funds for vast Sums;for, low as we think the Interest of Money to be now, we give better Interest than they can make at home; and our Parliamentary Securities having been always maintained inviolably, give every body the utmost Confidence in them. As therefore all Commodities (and Money is no other) ever did, and ever will find the highest market, so this is the Cause why Foreigners deposit their Money in our Funds; and as they thereby draw home the Interest, they contribute so much to the decreasing the Cash of the Nation.

Another thing, which still enforceth the Argument to permit our current Coin to go and come freely, as the Balance of Trade may require, is, that if we have the Balance of Trade in our Favour, on any Nation who hath the Balance in their Favour on another which hath the Ballance on us, such Nations will probably transmit our Money to the Nation that has the Balance on them;because if they send their own current Coin, it will be as much foreign Coin to the Nation it's sent to, as our Coin can be; and therefore, as I said, if we have the Balance on any nation which receives our Money, it will come back again to us, because it will pay more and be readier, than if they sent us Bullion or heir own current Specie; and thus will it save our Money from being melted abroad as well as at home; which I think a strengthening Argument for permitting our Specie to go and come freely where the Balance of Trade shall carry it.

In the Beginning of this Essay, it was laid down as a Maxim, That Gold and Silver (i.e. Money) will be plentiest where the Mines are: Now since I am treating of prohibiting our current Coin to be exported, let it be supposed, that the People possess'd of the Mines could furnish themselves with the Necessaries and Pleasures of Life by the Produce of their own Country, and therefore should think fit to prohibit the Exportation of Gold and Silver, and should thereby be effectually able to prevent the Exportation thereof; which is undoubtedly impossible: I say, if we suppose such Nations to prohibit the Exportation of Gold and Silver, and at the same time continue to work those Mines, so that they are continually giving more and more Gold and Silver, how great must the Increase of those Commodities soon become! And since Gold and Silver are of little Use, besides procuring the Necessaries and Conveniencies of Life, which alone are real Riches, and for which Gold and Silver are now universally exchanged; would not the great Plenty of these Commodities, thus continually increasing, cause proportionably so much more Gold and Silver (with which they would at length be incumbered) to be given for the more necessary Produce and Fruits of the Earth? And would not this so depress the Value of Gold and Silver, by their Plenty amongst them, as to give amble Opportunity and Encouragement to all the World to go to this Market with their Produce and Manufactures, which they can and will sell for a vast deal less Gold and Silver, than what such Goods of their own raising would in this Case be sold for? Nay, they would find it a Convenience to be eased of the Burthen of Gold and Silver, which the Mines, if continually worked, would be giving, as certainly as it's a Relief to any Country to part with any Commodity they too much abound in: For if they do not cease to work the Mines, when they have raised Gold and Silver enough to be burthensome, they must and will certainly drop their Cultivation and Manufactures; since Men will not easily be induced to labour and toil, for what they can get with much less Trouble, by exchanging some of the Excess of their Gold and Silver for what they want. And if they should be supposed, as is natural enough in this case, to drop their Cultivation and Manufactures, which are much the slowest and most laborious Way of supplying themselves with what they could so easily and readily procure by exchanging Gold and Silver, which they too much abound in, they would certainly, in a great Measure, by so doing lose the Arts of Cultivation, and especially of Manufactures; as it's thought Spain hath done, merely by the Accession of the Wealth which the West Indies have produced them;whence they are become a poor Nation, and the Conduit-Pipes to disperse the Gold and Silver over the World, which other Nations, by making Goods cheaper than they can do, are fetching from them, to such a Degree, as that the Mines are scarcely sufficient to answer their Occasions; and though they are sensible of this, yet they find by Experience they can't prevent it.

The case is the very same, in some Degree, in every Nation, whose Quantity of real or artificial Cash is large enough to support the Prices of their goods, considerably above the Rates such Goods bear in other Nations around them. Whence it's obvious, all Prohibitions must in the Issue be injurious to Trade, because beside all other Mischiefs they occasion, they are always designed to restrain the Money from going out of the Nation.

Yet I must own, I am entirely for preventing the Importation of all foreign Commodities, as much as possible; but not by Acts of Parliament, which never can do any good to trade; but by raising such Goods ourselves, so cheap as to make it impossible for other Nations to find their Account in bringing them to us:

And as this is the only natural and effectual Prohibition of such Things as we would not receive from abroad, so I wish every Nation in the World would do this as much as ever they can; for then the Plenty of every thing would be so great, that all Mankind would be happy, if this world is capable of making them so.

I shall now proceed to some Observations upon the whole.