“You affirm (says he) that if the rate of a guinea be reduced one shilling, there would be a loss of the one and twentieth part upon all the guineas in the nation;” (yes, as often as debtors might be obliged to give them to their creditors for pounds sterling) “but that there would be no loss at all upon guineas, if they were ordered to pass for twenty one shillings, having in them no more silver than there is at present in twenty standard shillings.” (no, certainly; because the debtor would pay his debt with the same number of guineas which he had borrowed.) "Strange, very strange indeed, that there should be such magic in the word shilling, and the number twenty one, as to make the same thing, only calling it by different names, have such different effects! It is scarce necessary to take any farther notice of such a mere jingle of words; but out of tenderness to these young logicians, but more out of regard to those who may be deceived by them, if any such there can be, I shall endeavour to shew, that our scheme is more favourable to them than their own.
“It is self-evident that the nation would not lose one farthing upon all the gold it exported, by a reduction of the mint price of gold: for this reduction would not in the least debase the intrinsic quality of the gold, and every guinea that went into foreign parts, would fetch there as much afterwards, as it doth at present.”
What I have put in Italics clears up the opinion which the author endeavours to refute. He seems much surprized to find magic concealed under the word shilling, and twenty one, whereas there are no words more magical in all the jargon of astrology than in these, and in every term relating to the denominations of money of accompt. Is it not very magical, that the same quantity of silver at present found in twenty one light shillings, being coined into twenty standard shillings, should only acquit a pound sterling of debt, and that were it coined again into twenty one shillings, it would acquit one pound one shilling of debt? Nay more, were it coined into a hundred shillings, it would acquit a debt of five pounds.
The doctrine, therefore, which the author endeavours to combat in this place, is not so ridiculous as it appeared to him; but he has not, in this place, attended to the difference between paying what one owes, and buying merchandize in the course of foreign trade. Let me illustrate this by an example.
I come to my creditor with a guinea, and I say, I owe you twenty one shillings; there you have them. No, says my creditor, that piece is but twenty, by the new regulation; I must have one shilling more. There is no reasoning here, the denomination of the coin must decide between us, not the weight, not the intrinsic value of what I had borrowed. But I go to a shop to buy a hat, the hatter asks twenty shillings; I offer him a guinea and demand a shilling to be returned; says the hatter, That guinea is worth but twenty shillings: Very well, say I, if my piece of gold is worth no more than 20 shillings, your hat was, yesterday, worth a shilling less than it, and, consequently, to day is worth no more than 19 shillings.
In the last example, magic has no effect, and to such cases Mr. Harris has only attended in the passage cited; but in the first, the magical word of a statute, is capable to undo one half of the nation; although their ruin does not imply the exportation of a shilling out of the kingdom, or any benefit to foreigners, unless they be creditors to Great Britain.
The interest of creditors is always the predominant, and determines the opinion of a nation.
IV. The sentiments which the people of England generally form upon this subject, are directed by those of the higher classes. These are all of the class of creditors, and very naturally retain sentiments analogous to their own interest. I am far from insinuating any thing here to the prejudice of this class; all I mean is, that upon an obscure point, people lean naturally to that side which favours themselves, especially when the nation’s interest, and the interest of justice, do not evidently declare against it.
I call the higher classes of a people creditors; because they live upon a fortune already made, and draw their income from permanent contracts: and those are the debtors, who are bound on the opposite side of such contracts. Besides these two interests, there is another which can never be at the mercy of any arbitrary regulation as to money: those, to wit, who live upon their industry, and who enter into no contract but that of sale: they regulate their prices according to the intrinsic value of the coin at the time; whereas the others who are engaged in permanent contracts, must regulate theirs according to the words of their contract, and the interpretation which the law puts upon those words. Every man therefore, whose fortune is already made, either in land, money, or salary, has an interest in seeing the standard raised, and those who are bound in permanent contracts with them, are those only who can be hurt by it.
Farther, the higher classes in Great Britain have always the penning of the law. Is it then surprising, to find the interest of creditors constantly attended to, in new regulations of the standard? When Princes arbitrarily debase the standard, they debase it because at such a time they are virtually in the class of debtors: their expence then exceeds their income. On the contrary, when wars come to cease, and when their expences are reduced within the compass of their revenue, they raise the standard: because they become then of the class of creditors.