Page:Sir William Petty - A Study in English Economic Literature - 1894.djvu/65

66 be too much as too little (481), yet when he considers practical questions of state policy, he assumes the political point of view. As the great need of the newly developing modern state was a well filled treasury, he advises that the importation of gold and silver should be encouraged (235). Again, in the same spirit, he makes the following remarkable recommendation: "That selling of lands to foreigners for gold and silver would enlarge the stock of the kingdom" (282). On the other hand, he looks upon the prohibition of exporting money as impracticable and nugatory. If it has any effect it acts as a kind of insurance premium, heightening the price of the goods purchased with the money exported in defiance of the law (45). The advantage of permitting the export is to be seen, when we remember that the trader can make much stiffer bargains if he has ready money than if he had commodity alone (46). On practical questions of currency Petty is very full and complete. "If the coinage is of specie of unequal weight and fineness," it is no longer a rule (Quantulumcunque). He gives a detailed account of the damage resulting from these inequalities. The money, if full weight and fineness, is sorted out by exchangers, and exported to some place where its real value is recognized (348). He has carefully examined the familiar fiscal expedient of tampering with the coinage, either raising or debasing it. The idea of such a proceeding is "to multiply it and make it pass for more than it did before" (75). This means to purchase more commodities or labor with it. What such a policy amounts to is simply a tax upon the people to whom the state is indebted, or, in plain words, a