Some Considerations of the Lowering of Interest [20]
of this quality in that Grain, would give it an excellency very considerable: And yet this would not increase the Price of it one Farthing in Twenty Bushels, because its quantity or vent would not hereby, to any sensible degree, be alter'd. 3. Neither does the Increasing of any good quality, in any sort of things make it yield more. For though Teasels be much better this Year, than they were last, they are not one jot dearer, unless they be fewer too, or the consumption of them greater. 4. Nor does the lessening the good qualities of any sort of Commodity lessen its Price; which is evident in Hops, that are usually dearest those Years they are worst. But if it happen to be a Species of Commodity, whose defects may be supplyed by some other, the making of it worse does lessen its Price; because it hinders its Vent. For if Rye should any Year prove generally smutty or grown, no question it would yield less Money than otherwise, because the deficiency of that might be, in some measure, made up by Wheat, and other Grain. But if it be a sort of Commodity whose use no other known thing can supply, 'tis not its being better or worse, but its quantity and vent is that alone which regulates, and determines its value. To apply this now to Money, as capable of different Rates of Interest. To Money considered in its proper use, as a Commodity passing in exchange from one to another, all that is done by Interest, is but the adding to it by agreement or publick Authority, a faculty, which naturally it has not, of increasing every Year Six per Cent. Now if publick Authority sink Use to Four per Cent. 'tis certain it diminishes this good quality in Money one Third. But yet this making the Money of England not one Farthing more than it was, it alters not the Measures upon which all changeable Commodities increase or sink their price, and so makes not Money Exchange for less of any Commodity, than it would without this alteration of its Interest. If lessening Use to Four per Cent. should at all alter the quantity of Money, and make it less, it would make Money, as it has the Nature of a Commodity, dearer, i.e. a less quantity of Money would Exchange for a greater quantity of another Commodity, than it would before. This perhaps will appear a little plainer by these following particulars. 1. That the Intrinsick Natural worth of any Thing, consists in its fitness to supply the Necessities or serve the Conveniencies of human Life; and the more necessary it is to our Being, or the more it contributes to our Well-being the greater is its worth: But yet, 2. That there is no such Intrinsick Natural settled value in any Thing, as to make any assign'd quantity of it, constantly worth any assigned quantity of another. 3. The Marketable value of any assign'd quantities of two or more Commodities, are pro hic & nunc, equal, when they will Exchange one for another. As supposing one Bushel of Wheat, two Bushels of Barley, Thirty pound of Lead, and one Ounce of Silver, will now in the Market be taken one for another, they are then of equal worth: And our Coin being that which Englishmen reckon by, an Englishman would say, that now one Bushel of Wheat, two Bushels of Barley, thirty Pound of Lead, and one Ounce of Silver, were equally worth five Shillings. 4. The change of this Marketable value of any Commodity in respect of an other Commodity or in respect of a standing common Measure, is not the altering of any Intrinsick value or quality in the Commodity; (for musty and smutty Corn will Sell dearer at one time than the clean and sweet at another) but the alteration of some proportion, which that Commodity bears to something else. 5. This proportion in all Commodities, whereof Money is one, is the proportion of their quantity to the vent. The Vent is nothing else, but the passing of Commodities from one owner to another in Exchange; and is then call'd quicker, when a greater quantity of any species of Commodity, is taken off from the Owners of it, in an equal space of time. 6. This Vent is regulated, i.e. made quicker