Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/353

Rh stock maintained its equality with specie, was a real enhancement of the value of labour in the United States, but not in England, by reason of the equalising powers of native labour; and the whole effect of our own bank paper, was to render some part of this real benefit merely nominal.

We now arrive to a conclusion of a formidable aspect. If bank currency cannot benefit a nation, through the medium of domestick commerce; because every species of labour consumed at home, will equalise its price in relation to a local currency; and if it cannot destroy or even diminish mercantile profit upon exported labour; it follows, that it does not reimburse a nation for the tax it collects; and at best only raises prices and excites industry, like taxes and useless offices.

A bank currency may therefore, in its domestick operation, both increase price and diminish value. The first by neutralising a portion of labour; the second, by burdening the same country with its maintenance, against any reimbursement for which the equalising nature of native prices, is an effectual obstacle. But specie rather excites than neutralises labour, and draws little or no tax from a nation. The possessor can part with it at a small profit, or even at none, without ruin, because he pays no interest for it; and it is his interest to take any profit in preference to its lying inactive. But the borrower of bank paper, cannot part with it, without making a profit equal to its cost. He cannot afford to take a profit even of five per centum, as a buyer with his own money may. He must consider himself in the lights of both borrower and merchant, and feel a necessity of making profit in both characters. The owner of specie considers himself as a merchant only. The first is under a necessity of uniting in a tacit combination, compounded of bankers and borrowers, to depress prices, that one may get interest, and the other profit; these ends must be effected, or borrowing and lending bank paper would cease; they are only to be