Further Considerations [14]
That the necessity of Foreign expence and Exportation to answer the Balance of Trade, may be diminished, but cannot in any sense be augmented by raising the Value of our Money. I beg his pardon, If I cannot assent to this. Because the necessity of our Exportation of Money depending wholly upon the Debts which we contract in Foreign Parts, beyond what our Commodities Exported can pay; the Coining our Money in bigger or less pieces under the same or different denominations, or on the present or proposed Foot, in it self neither increasing those Debts, nor the Expences that make them, can neither augment nor diminish the Exportation of our Money. 2. He replies p. 72. That Melters of the Coin will have less profit by Fourteen pence half-penny in the Crown when the Money is Coined upon the new Foot. To this I take liberty to say, that there will not be a farthing more profit in melting down the Money, if it were all new mill'd Money upon the present Foot, than if it were all new Coin'd, as is proposed One fifth lighter. For whence should the profit arise more in the one, than the other? But Mr. Lowndes goes upon this supposition; That Standard Bullion is now worth Six Shillings and five Pence an Ounce, of mill'd Money and would continue to sell for six Shillings five Pence the Ounce, if our Money were all weighty mill'd Money: Both which I take to be mistakes, and think I have proved them to be so. 3. He says, 'Tis hoped that the Exchange to Holland may be kept at a stand, or at least from falling much lower. I hope so too. But how that concerns this Argument, or the Coining of the Money upon a new Foot, I do not see. 4. He says, p. 73. There is a great difference with regard to the serive and disservice of the Publick, between carrying out Bullion or Coin,for necessart uses, Or for prohibited Commodities. The gain to the Exporters, which is that which makes them melt it down and Export it, is the same in both Cases. And the necessity of Exporting it is the same. For 'tis to pay Debts, which there is an equal necessity of paying, when once contracted, though for useless things. They are the Goldsmiths and Dealers in Silver that usually Export what Silver is sent beyond Sea, to pay the Debts they have contracted by their Bills of Exchange. But those Dealers in Exchange seldom know, or consider, how they to whom they give their Bills, have or will employ the Money they receive upon those Bills. Prohibited Commodities, 'tis true, should be kept out, and useless ones Impoverish us by being brought in. But that is the fault of our Importation: And there the mischief should be cured, by Laws, and our way of Living. For the Exportation of our Treasure is not the cause of their Importation, but the consequence. Vanity and Luxury spends them: That gives them vent here: That vent causes their Importation: And when our Merchants have brought them, if our Commodities will not be enough, our Money must go to pay for them. But what this Paragraph has in it against continuing our Coin upon the present Foot, or for making our Coin lighter, I confess here again, I do not see. 'Tis true what Mr. Lowndes observes here, the Importation of Gold, and the going of Guineas at 30s. has been a great prejudice and loss to the kingdom. But that has been wholly owing to our clip'd Money, and not at all to our Money being Coin'd at five Shillings two Pence the Ounce; nor is the Coining our Money lighter, the cure of it. The only remedy for that mischief, as well as a great many others, is the putting an end to the passing of clip'd Money by Tale, as if it were lawful Coin. 5. His fifth Head p. 74. is to answer those, who hold, that by the lessening our Money one fifth, all People who are to receive Money upon Contracts already made, will be defrauded of 20 per Cent. of their due: And thus all Men will lose one fifth of their settled Revenues, and all men that have lent Money one fifth of their Principal and Use. To remove this Objection, Mr. Lowndes says, that Silver in England is grown scarce, and consequently dearer, and so is