Hume's Political Discourses. David Hume

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СКАЧАТЬ the English, French, and Dutch by their African trade, and by their interlopers in the West Indies, bring home six millions a year, of which not above a third part goes to the East Indies. This sum alone in ten years would probably double the ancient stock of money in Europe. And no other satisfactory reason can be given why all prices have not risen to a much more exorbitant height, except that derived from a change of customs and manners. Besides that more commodities are produced by additional industry, the same commodities come more to market after men depart from their ancient simplicity of manners; and though this increase has not been equal to that of money, it has, however, been considerable, and has preserved the proportion between coin and commodities nearer the ancient standard.

      Were the question proposed, Which of these methods of living in the people, the simple or refined, is most advantageous to the state or public? I should, without much scruple, prefer the latter, in a view to politics at least; and should produce this as an additional reason for the encouragement of trade and manufactures.

      When men live in the ancient simple manner, and supply all their necessaries from domestic industry or from the neighbourhood, the sovereign can levy no taxes in money from a considerable part of his subjects; and if he will impose on them any burdens, he must take his payment in commodities, with which alone they abound—a method {p38} attended with such great and obvious inconveniences, that they need not here be insisted on. All the money he can pretend to raise must be from his principal cities, where alone it circulates; and these, it is evident, cannot afford him so much as the whole state could, did gold and silver circulate through the whole. But besides this obvious diminution of the revenue, there is also another cause of the poverty of the public in such a situation. Not only the sovereign receives less money, but the same money goes not so far as in times of industry and general commerce. Everything is dearer where the gold and silver are supposed equal, and that because fewer commodities come to market, and the whole coin bears a higher proportion to what is to be purchased by it, whence alone the prices of everything are fixed and determined.

      Here then we may learn the fallacy of the remark, often to be met with in historians, and even in common conversation, that any particular state is weak, though fertile, populous, and well cultivated, merely because it wants money. It appears that the want of money can never injure any state within itself: for men and commodities are the real strength of any community. It is the simple manner of living which here hurts the public, by confining the gold and silver to few hands and preventing its universal diffusion and circulation. On the contrary, industry and refinements of all kinds incorporate it with the whole state, however small its quantity may be; they digest it into every vein, so to speak, and make it enter into every transaction and contract. No hand is entirely empty of it. And as the prices of everything fall by that means, the sovereign has a double advantage: he may draw money by his taxes from every part of the state, and what he receives goes farther in every purchase and payment.

      We may infer, from a comparison of prices, that money is not more plentiful in China than it was in Europe three centuries ago; but what immense power is that empire possessed of, if we may judge by the civil and military list maintained by it! Polybius tells us that provisions were so {p39} cheap in Italy during his time that in some places the stated club​[16] at the inns was a semis a head, little more than a farthing! Yet the Roman power had even then subdued the whole known world. About a century before that period the Carthaginian ambassador said, by way of raillery, that no people lived more sociably amongst themselves than the Romans, for that in every entertainment which, as foreign ministers, they received they still observed the same plate at every table. The absolute quantity of the precious metals is a matter of great indifference. There are only two circumstances of any importance—viz., their gradual increase and their thorough concoction and circulation through the state; and the influence of both these circumstances has been here explained.

      In the following essay we shall see an instance of a like fallacy as that above mentioned, where a collateral effect is taken for a cause, and where a consequence is ascribed to the plenty of money; though it be really owing to a change in the manners and customs of the people.

      NOTES, OF MONEY.

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12 A private soldier in the Roman infantry had a denarius a day, somewhat less than eightpence. The Roman emperors had commonly 25 legions in pay, which, allowing 5000 men to a legion, makes 125,000. (Tacitus, Ann. lib. 4.) It is true there were also auxiliaries to the legions, but their numbers are uncertain as well as their pay. To consider only the legionaries, the pay of the private men could not exceed £1,600,000. Now, the Parliament in the last war commonly allowed for the fleet £2,500,000. We have therefore £900,000 over for the officers and other expenses of the Roman legions. There seem to have been but few officers in the Roman armies in comparison of what are employed in all our modern troops, except some Swiss corps. And these officers had very small pay: a centurion, for instance, only double a common soldier. And as the soldiers from their pay (Tacitus, Ann. lib. 1) bought their own clothes, arms, tents, and baggage, this must also diminish considerably the other charges of the army. So little expensive was that mighty Government, and so easy was its yoke over the world. And, indeed, this is the more natural conclusion from the foregoing calculations; for money, after the conquest of Egypt, seems to have been nearly in as great plenty at Rome as it is at present in the richest of the European kingdoms.

13 This is the case with the bank of Amsterdam.

14 These facts I give upon the authority of Monsieur du Tot in his Reflexions politiques, an author of reputation; though I must confess that the facts which he advances on other occasions are often so suspicious as to make his authority less in this matter. However, the general observation that the augmenting the money in France does not at first proportionably augment the prices is certainly just.

      By the by, this seems to be one of the best reasons which can be given for a gradual and universal augmentation of the money, though it has been entirely overlooked in all those volumes which have been written on that question by Melon, Du Tot, and Paris de Verney. Were all our money, for instance, recoined, and a penny’s worth of silver taken from every shilling, the new shilling would probably purchase everything that could have been bought by the old; the prices of everything would thereby be insensibly diminished; foreign trade enlivened; and domestic industry, by the circulation of a greater number of pounds and shillings, would receive some increase and encouragement. In executing such a project, it would be better to make the new shilling pass for twenty-four half-pence, in order to preserve the illusion, and make it be taken for the same. And as a recoinage of our silver begins to be requisite, by the continual wearing of our shillings and six-pences, it may be doubtful whether we ought to imitate the example in King William’s reign, when the clipped money was raised to the old standard.

15 The Italians gave to the Emperor Maximilian the nickname of Pochi-Danari. None of the enterprises of that prince ever succeeded, for want of money.

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