Suppose the specie of Europe to continue increasing in quantity every year, until it amounts to ten times the present quantity, would prices rise in proportion?
I answer, that such an augmentation might happen, without the smallest alteration upon prices, or that it might occasion a very great one, according to circumstances. If industry increases to ten times what it is at present, that is to say, were the produce of it increased to ten times its present value, according to the actual standard of prices, the value of every manufacture and produce might remain without alteration. This supposition is possible; because no man can tell to what extent demand may carry industry. If, on the other hand, the scale of demand could be supposed to preponderate, so as to draw all the wealth into circulation, without having the effect of augmenting the supply (which I take to be impossible) then prices would rise to ten times the present standard, at least in many articles.
This solution is entirely consistent both with Mr. Hume’s principle and mine; because nothing is so easy in an hypothesis, as to establish proportions between things, which in themselves are beyond all the powers of computation.
CHAP. XXIX.
Circulation with foreign Nations, the same thing as the Balance of Trade.
We have endeavoured to shew in a former chapter, how the circulation of money, given in exchange for consumable commodities, produces a vibration in the balance of domestic wealth: we are now to apply the same principles to the circulation of foreign trade; in order to find out, if there can really be such a thing as a balance upon it, which may enrich one country, and impoverish another.
It has been said, that when money is given for a consumable commodity, the person who gets it acquires a balance in his favour, so soon as he with whom he has exchanged, has begun to consume.
That if two consumable commodities are exchanged, the balance comes to a level, when both are consumed. That it is only the wealth which is found in circulation, which can change its balance, and the remainder must be found locked up, made into plate, or employed in foreign trade. And it has been observed, that the quantity of money found in circulation, is ever in proportion to the sale of the produce of industry and manufactures; and that when the quantity of metals is not sufficient to carry on a circulation, proportioned to the demands of those who have any real equivalent to give, that symbolical money may be made to fill up the void, when the interest of the state comes to require it.
We have also laid it down as a kind of general rule, that while luxury only tends to keep up demand to the reasonable proportion of power and inclination in the industrious part of a people to supply it, that then it is advantageous to a nation; and that so soon as it begins to make the scale of home-demand preponderate, by forming a competition among the natives, to consume what strangers seek for, that then it is hurtful, and has an evident tendency to root out foreign trade. These principles are all analogous to one another, and should be retained while we examine the question before us.
I must still add, that the fluctuation of the balance of wealth is constantly inclining in favour of the industrious, and against the idle consumer. This however admits of a restriction, viz. The industrious must be supposed to be frugal; and the idle, extravagant. For if the industrious man consumes the produce of his industry, he will only have laboured to increase his consumption, not his wealth: and if the idle person, by his frugality, keeps within the bounds of his yearly income, he will thereby repair every disadvantage incurred by his sloth, the balance then will stand even between them; the industry in one scale, and the fund already provided in the other, will keep both parties on a level as before.