A Contribution to The Critique Of The Political Economy

[108] Boisguillebert, who would stem the development of bourgeois relations of production and violently attacks the bourgeois personally, has a soft heart for those forms of money in which it appears only ideally or transiently. Thus he speaks first of the medium of circulation and next of the means of payment. What he does not see is the direct transition of money from its ideal to the material form, since the hard cash is latently present in the ideal measure of value. That money is but another form of commodities, he says, is shown by wholesale trade, in which exchange takes place without the intervention of money, after "les marchandises sont apprecis." ("Le Detail de la France," l. c. p. 210.)

[109] Locke, l. c., p. 17, 18.

[110] "Il danaro ammassato supplisce a quella somma, che per essere attualmente in circolazione, per l'eventuale promiscuit de 'commerci si allontana e sorte della sfera della circolazione medesima." ("The accumulated money supplements that amount which, in order to be actually in circulation and to meet all possible perturbations of trade, retires from that sphere of circulation." (G. R. Carli, note to Berri's "Meditazioni sulla Economia Politica," p. 196, t. XV. of Custodi's l. c.)

[111] Montanari, "Della Moneta," 1683, l. c., p. 40. " cosi fattamente diffusa per tutto il globo terrestre la communicazione de 'populi insieme, che puo quasi dirsi esser il mondo tutto divinuto una sola citta in cui si fa perpetua fiera d'ogni mercanzia, e dove ogni uomo di tutto cio che la terra, gli animali e l'umana industria altrove producono, puo mediante il danaro stando in sua casa provedersi e godere. Maravigliosa invenzione." ("The communication of nations among themselves is so widely extended all over the globe that it may be almost said that the entire world has become one city in which a perpetual fair of merchandise is held and where every man may by means of money acquire and enjoy, while staying at home, all that the earth, the animals and human industry produce elsewhere. Marvelous invention.")

[112] I metalli han questo di proprio e singulare che in essi soli tutte le ragioni si riducono ad una che la loro quantit, non avendo ricevuto delle natura diversa qualit n nell'interna loro constituzione n nell'externa forma e fattura." (Galiani, l. c., p. 130.) ("Metals have this singular property, that everything in them is reduced to one consideration, viz., that of quantity, since they are not endowed by nature with any differences in quality either in their internal structure or in their external form and shape.")

[113] De Orbe Novo. "O, happy coin, which furnishes mankind with a pleasant and useful beverage and keeps its possessors immune from the hell-born pest of avarice, since it can not be either buried or preserved long."

[114] In 760 a multitude of poor people emigrated to the south of Prague to wash the gold sand found there, and three men were able to extract three marks of gold a day. As a result of that the run on the "diggings" and the number of hands taken away from agriculture became so great that the country was visited by a famine the following year. See M. G. Krner, "Abhandlung von dem Alterthum des Bhmischen Bergwerks," Schneeberg, 1758.

[115] So far the Australian and other discoveries have not affected the ratio of the values of gold and silver. The assertions to the contrary of Michel Chevalier are worth as much as the Socialism of this ex-St. Simonist. The quotations of silver on the London market prove, however, that the average gold price of silver during 1850-1858 is not quite 3 per cent. higher than the price during 1830-1850. But this rise in price is accounted for simply by the Asiatic demand for silver. In the course of the years 1852-1858 the price of silver was changing in certain years and months only with a change in this demand, and in no case with the importation of gold from the newly discovered sources. The following is a summary of the gold prices of silver on the London market.

PRICE OF SILVER PER OUNCE.

[116] "Gold is a wonderful thing! Whoever possesses it, is master of all that he desires. By means of gold even admission to Heaven may be gained for souls." (Columbus in a letter from Jamaica in 1503).

[117] The slowness of the process was admitted by Hume, although it but little agrees with his principle. See David Hume "Essays and Treatises on several subjects." London, 1777, v. I, p. 300.

[118] Conf. Steuart, l. c. v. I, p. 394-400.

[119] David Hume, l. c. p. 300.

[120] David Hume, l. c. p. 303.

[121] David Hume, l. c. p. 303.

[122] David Hume, l. c. p. 307, 308, 303: "It is evident, that the prices do not so much depend on the absolute quantity of commodities, and that of money, which are in a nation, as on that of the commodities, which can or may come to market, and of the money which circulates. If the coin be locked up in chests, it is the same thing with regard to prices, as if it were annihilated; if the commodities be hoarded in magazines and granaries, a like effect follows. As the money and commodities in these cases, never meet, they cannot affect each other. The whole (of prices) at last reaches a just proportion with the new quantity of specie which is in the kingdom."