Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/358

348 within the sphere of commerce. A chartered power of creatins; it will therefore he used, as would be an exclusive national power of creating coin.

If a paper currency increased the price of exports, England could not export. This idea is repeated for the sake of examining a difficulty which it suggests. Although the price of English exportable labour is kept lower than the exportable labour of other countries, by the means to which the United States have resorted, to raise the price of their exportable labour; how happens it that England must moreover resort to war and fleets to force her commerce, and that she shrunk from a competition with the U. States, even when oar currency was specie, and the price of our labour higher? The fact shews, that a nation, after having submitted to the evil a:id injustice of diminishing the price of its own labour, by a paper currency, was yet unable to rival a country without a paper currency, and where the price of labour was higher; and therefore that its commerce was in some way injured by the monopoly prescribed for its benefit. The solution of this enigma requires a knowledge of English commerce, the want of which confines me to surmise. Foreign nations and colonies, should as probably take advantage of the low price of labour in England, as her capitalist or commercial interest does, if they could enter into a competition with that interest. This is prevented by a navigation act, contrived to secure the benefit of the low price of labour, to an order of citizens; and to exclude foreign participation. And the spirit of monopoly, which levelled this instrument against home labour, levels it also against the world, to enhance the value of exportable commodities, after they have passed from the workman to the capitalist or merchant.

But the fact, without any explanation, suffices for our argument. It proves, that hank currency will have the effect of diminishing the price of exportable labour to the workman, and that it must be raised in favour of the merchant by the means used in England, namely, war, fleets and navigation laws.