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been produced are not sold at a price to cover the expenses 

 of their production, the men of capital suffer loss and stop 

 their business; the men of borrowed capital are ruined, and 

 their workmen and dependants and themselves go into des- 

 titution. If no men employed borrowed capital business 

 would stop nevertheless, or move slowly, and the people would 

 become destitute, and their energies and skill useless. The 

 frame-work of commerce can no more accommodate itself to 

 a fluctuating quantity or value of money, than the width of 

 streets can be altered without destroying the houses, or the 

 gauge of railways, without a suspension of the traffic, and 

 spoiling the adaptation of the carriages. In a season of pros- 

 perity, perhaps every pound pays a pound of debt, on an aver- 

 age, once in three days, and productions are bought and sold 

 probably ten times, ere they are finally distributed. If, then, 

 we take the currency at 50 millions, transactions are done 

 in a year amounting to 5,000 millions. 



"If 5 millions of the currency are withdrawn, it would re- 

 duce the annual transactions 500 millions; or, allowing this to 

 be evaded by one-half, by longer credits, and reduced payments 

 of expenses, the positive loss to the nation would be 50 millions 

 of production and consumption prevented; and to this amount, 

 privation or destitution must be suffered by the masses of 

 the people. Nor is it merely manufactures that suffer, or 

 their productions that are lessened, but the property of agri- 

 culture must suffer with it, and its productions be lessened ; 

 for, with a bad market and scarce money, the farmer's policy 

 is to save all expenses that he can. He will leave his farm 

 in a state of nature, or worse ; employ no workmen ; leave 

 his fields undrained and umnanured, to the dominion of 

 thorns, thistles, and rushes. If we could suppose a nation 

 born in a day, with no fixed obligations and payments, it 

 would not matter, for their own purposes, what their quantity 

 of money was, providing that it was enough to be divided, 

 without becoming impalpable; but, in a nation which has 



