Some Considerations of the Lowering of Interest [16]
settled by a Law, according to the judg'd Value of it at that time, and the same Law, limiting the Rent perhaps to 5 s. per Acre, have continued still. The Absurdity and Impracticableness of this every one sees at the first Proposal, and readily concludes within himself, that things must be left to find their own Price; and it is impossible in this their constant mutability for Human Foresight to set Rules and Bounds to their constantly-varying Proportion and Use, which will always regulate their Value. They who consider things beyond their Names, will find, That Money, as well as all other Commodities, is liable to the same Changes and Inequalities: Nay in this respect of the Variety of its Value, brought in by time in the Succession of Affairs, the Rate of Money is less capable of being regulated by a Law in any Country than the Rent of Land. Because to the quick Changes, that happen in Trade, this too must be added, That Money may be brought in, or carried out of the kingdom, which Land cannot; and so that be truly worth 6 or 8 per Cent. this Year, which would yield but 4 the last. 2. Money has a Value, as it is capable by Exchange to procure us the Necessaries or Conveniencies of Life, and in this it has the Nature of a Commodity; only with this difference, That it serves us commonly by its Exchange, never almost by its Consumption. But though the use Men make of Money be not in its Consumption, yet it has not at all a more standing settled Value in Exchange with any other thing, than any other Commodity has, but a more known one, and better fitted by Name, Number, and Weight, to enable us to reckon what the Proportion of Scarcity and Vent of one Commodity is to another. For supposing, as before, that half an Ounce of Silver would last Year exchange for one Bushel of Wheat, or for 15 l. weight of Lead; if this Year Wheat be Ten times scarcer, and Lead in the same quantity to its Vent as it was, is it not evident that half an Ounce of Silver will still exchange for 15 l. of Lead, though it will exchange but for One Tenth of a Bushel of Wheat; and he that has use of Lead will as soon take 15 l. weight of Lead, as half an Ounce of Silver, for One Tenth of a Bushel of Wheat, and no more. So that if you say, that Money now is Nine Tenths less worth, than it was the former Year, you must say so of Lead too, and all other things, that keep the same Proportion to Money which they had before. The variation indeed is first and most taken notice {of} in Money: Because that is the universal measure by which People reckon, and used by every body in the valuing of all Things. For calling that half Ounce of Silver Half a Crown, they speak properly, and are readily understood when they say, Half a Crown, or two Shillings and six Pence, will now buy One Tenth of a Bushel of Wheat, but do not say, That 15 l. of Lead will now buy One Tenth of a Bushel of Wheat, because it is not generally used to this sort of Reckoning: nor do they say Lead is less worth than it was, though in respect of Wheat Lead be Nine Tenths worse than it was, as well as Silver: only by the Tale of Shillings we are better enabled to judge of it: Because these are measures whose Ideas by constant use are setled in every English Man's mind. This I suppose is the true Value of Money when it passes from one to another in Buying and Selling; where it runs the same Changes of higher and lower, as any other Commodity doth: For one equal quantity whereof you shall receive in Exchange more, or less of another Commodity at one time, than you do at another. For a Farmer that carries a Bushel of Wheat to Market, and a Labourer that carries Half a Crown, shall find that the Money of one, as well as Corn of the other, shall at some times purchase him more or less Leather or Salt, according as they are in greater Plenty and Scarcity one to another. So that in Exchanging Coin'd Silver for any other Commodity, (which is buying and selling) the same measure governs the Proportion you receive, as if you exchang'd Lead, or Wheat, or any other Commodity. That which regulates