An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy (Vol. 1 of 2) / Being an essay on the science of domestic policy in free nations. In which are particularly considered population, agriculture, trade, industry, money, coin, interest, circulation, banks, exchange, public credit, and taxes

by Sir James Steuart

In order, therefore, to make the balance of domestic wealth turn in favour of a poor man, he must be both industrious and frugal.

Now let us apply these principles to a whole nation, considered as an individual in the great society of mankind. A private person who conducts his affairs with prudence, must either be in a way of growing richer by his industry, or of spending his income with oeconomy and discretion: so I must suppose a nation which is well governed, either to be growing rich by foreign trade, or at least in a state of not becoming poorer by it.

It is the duty of every statesman to watch over the conduct of those who hold the foreign correspondence, as it is the duty of the master of a family to watch over those he sends to market.

I find it is the opinion of the learned Mr. Hume, that there is no such thing as a balance of trade, that money over all the world is like a fluid, which must ever be upon a level, and that so soon as in any nation that level is destroyed by any accident, while the nation preserves the number of its inhabitants, and its industry, the wealth must return to a level as before.

To prove this, he supposes four fifths of all the money in Great Britain annihilated in one night, the consequence of which he imagines would be, that all labour and commodities would sink in their price, and that foreign markets would be thereby entirely supplied by that industrious people, who would immediately begin to draw back such a proportion of wealth, as would put them again upon a level with their neighbours.

This reasoning is consistent with the principles we have examined, and humbly rejected in the preceding chapter; both stand upon the same foundation, and lead to a chain of consequences totally different from the whole plan of this inquiry.

My intention is not so much to refute the opinions of others, as briefly to pass them in review. General propositions, such as those we have been treating of, are only true or false, according as they are understood to be accompanied with certain restrictions, applications, and limitations: I shall therefore say nothing as to the proposition itself, but only examine how far the example he has taken of the sudden annihilation of a great proportion of a nation’s wealth, can naturally be followed by the consequences he supposes.

For this purpose, let me suggest another consequence (different from that of the author, and flowing from the doctrine we have established) which possibly might happen, upon the annihilation of four fifths of all the money in Great Britain. I shall take no notice of the effects which so sudden a revolution might occasion; these have not been attended to by the author, and therefore I shall consider them as out of the question. I suppose the event to have happened, prices to have been reduced, and every immediate inconvenience to have been prevented. My only inquiry shall be directed towards the unavoidable consequences of such a revolution, as to foreign trade, as to drawing back the money annihilated, and as to the preserving the same number of inhabitants, and the same degree of industry as before. If I can shew, that the event alone of annihilating the specie, and reducing prices in proportion, (which I shall allow to be the consequence of it) will have the effect of annihilating both industry and the industrious, it cannot afterwards be insisted on, that the revolution can have the effect of drawing back a proportional part of the general wealth of Europe: because the preservation of the industrious is considered as the requisite for this purpose.

Here then is the consequence, which, in my humble opinion, would very probably happen upon so extraordinary an emergency; and I flatter myself that my reader has already anticipated my decision.

The inhabitants of Great Britain, who, upon such an occasion, would be found in possession of all the exportable necessaries of life, and of many other kinds of goods demanded in foreign markets, instead of selling them to their poor countrymen, for a price proportioned to our author’s tariff, and to the diminution of the specie, which he takes to be the representation of them, would export them to France, to Holland, or to any other country where they could get the best price, and the inhabitants of Britain would starve.