Let the quantity of the coin be ever so much increased, it is the desire of spending it alone, which will raise prices. Let it be diminished ever so low, while there is real property of any denomination in the country, and a competition to consume in those who possess it, prices will be high, by the means of barter, symbolical money, mutual prestations, and a thousand other inventions. Let me give an example.
Suppose a country where prices are determined, and where the specie is sufficient for the circulation: is it not plain, that if this country has a communication with other nations, there must be a proportion between the prices of many kinds of merchandize, there and elsewhere, and that the sudden augmentation or diminution of the specie, supposing it could of itself operate the effects of raising or sinking prices, would be restrained in its operation by foreign competition? But let us suppose it cut off from every communication whatsoever, which seems the only case, where this theory can operate with any appearance of justness, will any body pretend, that the frugal or extravagant turn of the inhabitants, will have no influence upon prices, and will it be asserted, that no variation in the spirit of a people, as to frugality and dissipation, can take place, except upon a variation in the quantity of their gold and silver?
It may be answered, that as to articles of superfluity, no doubt the genius of a people may influence prices, in combination with the quantity of the specie; but that in articles of indispensible necessity, they must constantly remain in proportion to the mass of riches. This I cannot by any means admit to be just. Let me take the example of grain, which is the most familiar. Is it not plain, from what we have said above, that the proportion of wealth, found in the hands of the lowest class of the people, constantly regulates the price of it; consequently, let the rich be ever so wealthy, the price of subsistence can never rise above the faculties of the poor. And is it not also plain, that those of the lowest class of the people, who purchase subsistence, must buy it with the returns they receive from the rich for their industry? Now if the quantity of the wealth of the latter, does not regulate their demand for the service of the former, must it not follow, that the price of grain, as well as of every other thing offered to sale, must depend upon the degree of competition among the rich for the labour of the poor, that is, upon the demand for industry, and not on the quantity of wealth in the country?
No body ever denied, that the extraordinary demand for a commodity had the effect of raising the price of it: and certainly no body will deny, that the demand for a particular commodity may be greater at one time than at another, though the same quantity of that commodity be found at both times in the country; and the same quantity of specie likewise not only in the country, but also in circulation.
I acknowledge that in a country where there is much coin, and where credit is little known, a high and extraordinary demand for an article of superfluity, may raise the price more than in another where the coin is more scarce; because on certain occasions, the price of a thing has no other bounds than the extent of the faculties of the buyer. In like manner, in other countries where there is almost no coin, nor credit, it may be impossible for the highest demand to raise the price of such things even to the common standard established in those where there is great wealth. But these instances appear to be too particular to serve for the foundation of a general rule, with respect to the state of prices in the present situation of the nations of Europe, which, less or more, are all in communication with one another.
I cannot here omit taking notice of two very remarkable circumstances which we learn from undoubted historical authority, which seem to contradict one another, and to throw a great obscurity upon the principles I have been endeavouring to explain. I shall therefore introduce them by way of illustration, and when they are examined, I hope they will confirm my doctrine.
The first is, that in Scotland, formerly, when coin and credit were certainly very rare, the price of eight pounds weight of oat meal, which is now commonly sold at eight pence sterling, was then valued at no more than two thirds of one penny: and that a labouring man used to receive one penny and one third of a penny sterling for his week’s subsistence; that is to say, the value of sixteen pounds of oatmeal, which to this day is the regulated quantity given for that purpose.
There is a very curious confirmation of the authenticity of this computation, in an hospital at old Aberdeen; where in former times, some proprietors of lands had settled a certain quantity of oat meal in favours of the poor of the hospital, with a liberty to the hospital to accept the meal in kind, or the conversion at two thirds of a penny for every eight pounds weight. They imprudently chose the last, and to this very day they are paid according to this standard. Now it is certainly impossible that any degree of plenty whatsoever, or any failing of demand, could at present reduce the price of that commodity so very low; consequently, it may be said that it is the augmentation of wealth, not that of demand which raises prices.
The second fact we learn from antiquity, that at the time when Greece and Rome abounded in wealth, when every rarity, and the work of the choicest artists was carried to an excessive price, an ox was bought for a mere trifle, and grain was cheaper perhaps than ever it was in Scotland.
If the application of our principles to the circumstances of those times, produce a solution of these apparent inconsistencies; and if we thereby can discover that the low prices of grain, both in Scotland, where there was little money, and at Rome where there was a great deal, was entirely owing to the little demand for articles of subsistence; will it not follow, that our principle is just, and that the other, notwithstanding of the ingenuity of the thought, must fail in exactness; since it will appear, that low prices may be equally compatible with wealth, and with poverty.