

17 



ing its hundreds of millions. Continued prosperity and her 

 safety cannot co-exist. And to lift her short end of the 

 balance, the long end, bearing the nation's wealth, must de- 

 scend through the same angulation. As in the old astronomy, 

 the infinite heavens were made to circle daily round the 

 insignificant earth. 



"These observations will seem to argue for a purely metallic 

 money, at least for an original adherence to it. This might 

 have suited a nation making no progress, whose population 

 and commerce were never enlarged; but the same considerations 

 which show the evils of a fluctuation, point out, also, the 

 evils of a stationary quantity of money with an advancing 

 commerce. The machinery becomes too contracted for its 

 business. There is also a tendency to the congestion of 

 wealth, to make the rich richer, and the poor abject ; because 

 the power of property gains an undue ascendency over the 

 power of labour, and deranges the distribution of produc- 

 tions. 



"It is true, a purely metallic currency would not involve the 

 same extent and severity in the periodical fluctuations. The 

 wave would be of smaller dimensions (as far as caused by the 

 action of money), and the ordinary level sooner restored. 

 But it has nothing to mitigate a defalcation from an action 

 of property, as distinguished from the influence of money 

 through high prices. If the harvest fails, the metals must be 

 sent abroad for supplies, or famine arises ; and it no sooner 

 departs than all tradesmen begin to feel that they have not 

 the usual means to pay their debts, and they soon find their 

 debtors in the same predicament. Under these circumstances, 

 the tightness of money and failure of confidence that ensue, 

 have no direct tendency to bring about a restoration. When 

 high prices are not the cause of the departure of gold, crip- 

 pling commerce, to bring them down, can have no direct power 

 over its return. And the screwing and straining of the bank, 

 to check its course, can scarcely have a better effect than 



