Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/167

Rh pounds' worth of materials, and expended ten pounds in labour applied to them, now finds himself, by this alteration in the currency, possessed nominally of eighty pounds, but in reality of a sum which will purchase only half the labour and materials required to finish his machine; and he can neither complete it, from want of capital, nor dispose of what he has already done in its unfinished state for the price it has cost him. In the mean time, the other workman, who had incurred a debt of a hundred pounds in order to complete the purchase of his calendering machine, finds that the payments he receives for calendering, have, like all other prices, doubled, in consequence of the depreciation of the currency; and he has therefore, in fact, obtained his machine for one hundred and fifty pounds. Thus, without any fault or imprudence, and owing to circumstances over which they have no control, the widow is reduced almost to starve; one workman is obliged to renounce, for several years, his hope of becoming a master; and another, without any superior industry or skill, but, in fact, from having made, with reference to his circumstances, rather an imprudent bargain, finds himself unexpectedly relieved from half his debt, and the possessor of a valuable source of profit; whilst the former owner of the machine, if he also has invested the money arising from its sale in the Savings' Bank, finds his property suddenly reduced one-half.

(180.) These evils, to a greater or less extent, attend every change in the value of the currency; and the importance of preserving it as far as possible unaltered in value, cannot be too strongly impressed upon all classes of the community.