Some Considerations of the Lowering of Interest [50]
that having a mind to raise your Silver in respect of Gold, you make a Law to do it; what comes of that? If your Law prevail, only this; that as much as you raise Silver, you debase Gold (for they are in the condition of two things put in opposite Scales, as much as the one rises the other falls) and then your Gold will be carried away, with so much clear loss to the kingdom as you raise Silver and debase Gold by your Law, below their natural value. If you raise Gold in proportion to Silver the same effect follows. I say, Raise Silver in respect of Gold; and Gold in proportion to Silver. For when you would raise the value of Money, phansie what you will, 'tis but in respect of something you would change it for, and is done only when you can make a less quantity of the Metal, which your Money is made of, change for a greater quantity of that thing which you would raise it to. The effect indeed and ill consequence of raising either of these two Metals, in respect of the other is more easily observed and sooner found in raising Gold than Silver Coin: Because your accounts being kept, and your reckonings all made in Pounds, Shillings, and Pence, which are denominations of Silver Coins, or numbers of them; if Gold be made current at a rate above the free and Market value of those two Metals, every one will easily perceive the inconvenience. But there being a Law for it, you cannot refuse the Gold in Payment for so much. And all the Money or Bullion People will carry beyond Sea from you, will be in Silver, and the Money or Bullion brought in, will be in Gold. And the same just will happen when your Silver is raised and Gold debased in respect of one another, beyond their true and natural proportion: (Natural proportion or value I call that respective rate they find any where without the prescription of Law) For then Silver will be that which is brought in, and Gold will be carried out; and that still with loss to the kingdom, answerable to the over-value, set by the Law. Only as soon as the mischief is felt, people will (do what you can) raise their Gold to its natural value. For your accounts and bargains being made in the denomination of Silver-money; if, when Gold is raised above its proportion, by the Law, you cannot refuse it in Payment (as if the Law should make a Guinea current at 22 s. and 6 d.) you are bound to take it at that rate in Payment. But if the Law should make Guineas current at 20 s. he that has them is not bound to Pay them away at that rate, but may keep them ifhe pleases, or get more for them if he can: Yet from such a Law, one ofthese three things will follow. Either 1st, the Law forces them to go at 20 s. and then being found passing at that rate, Foreigners make their advantage of it: Or 2dly, People keep them up and will not part with them at the legal rate, understanding them really to be worth more, and then all your Gold lies dead, and is of no more use to Trade, than if it were all gone out of the kingdom: Or 3dly, It passes for more than the Law allows, and then your Law signifies nothing, and had been better let alone. Which way ever it succeeds it proves either prejudicial or ineffectual. If the design ofyour Law take place, the kingdom loses by it: If the inconvenience be felt and avoided, your Law is eluded. Money is the measure of Commerce, and of the rate of every thing, and therefore ought to be kept (as all othermeasures) as steady and invariable as may be. But this cannot be, if your Money be made of two Metals, whose proportion, and consequently whose price, constantly varies in respect of one another. Silver, for many Reasons, is the fittest of all metals to be this measure, and therefore generally made use of for Money. But then it is very unfit and inconvenient, that Gold, or any other Metal, should be made current Legal Money, at a standing settled Rate. This is to set a Rate upon the varying value of Things by Law, which justly cannot be done; and is, as I have shewed, as far as it prevails, a constant damage and prejudice to the Country, where it is practised. Suppose