Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/349

Rh The first species of fraud would be reprobated with universal indignation; the second is deliberately practised. ls the belly wiser than the head? A monopoly of money reaches all human wants, comforts, luxuries and passions. Every oppressive government is produced by some of the progeny of monopoly. If an individual of this family, has too often enabled tyrants to oppress nations, can the genus, covering, corrupting and commanding the whole species, enrich them?

If the monopoly of banking will rob a nation of its liberty, by corrupting or usurping the government, it is almost superfluous to prove, that it will rob it of its property also; because every separate interest acquiring one, has uniformly gotten the other. To the latter inquiry we shall however more particularly advert, since (he pecuniary effects of banking will admit of reasoning so nearly connected with figures, as to exhibit mathematical certainty. The truth or errour of the assertion, "that banks add to the price or value of the product of labour," is capable of being exhibited to the eye.

The reader will recollect the difference between price and value. Local price will settle its own level, in relation to local currency. If the price of agricultural products, consumed at home, had been increased by banking, home manufactures so consumed, would have experienced a proportional increase. No spceies of labour, will suffer itself to be sacrificed by bank currency, for the benefit of another. Each will compensate itself, by enhancing its price up to its natural level. If therefore bank paper could produce local disorders, in the balance of labour against labour, the effect could not be permanent; and a re-adjustment of the level of price, would place the several departments of labour in the same relative situation, as to value, even if the price of each had been doubled. To disarrange the natural relation between the value of labour, ascertained by fair competition, would wickedly oppress, unfairly to enrich; and damp the spirit of industry. And an advancement of the