Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/425

Rh arts, and by maritime commerce, metals and monies are attracted, they being drawn by political chemistry from the countries which possess them, by the means of the exchange of the productions they need, for the money they hold in superfluity. It is an incontrovertible truth, that there is a reciprocal attraction between money and the things it represents; but with this difference, that the force of what is represented is greater than that of the representative, or token, which is the money.

“Who among us is ignorant, that the nations of Europe which have most money are England and Holland? without these powers possessing any other means of acquiring it, unless by agriculture, arts, and maritime commerce. And if the productions and woollen manufactures of the English are the magnet, which, by the touch or spring of commerce, gently attracts to them money, and enriches them year after year; why is Quito so poor, and wherefore does it remain in that state, when there are, within its territory, an abundance of productions, and whatever is needful for the manufacture of woollens and cottons, the latter of which constitute the principal mine of opulent India? The cause of our decline is very visible: we are in need of an active commerce, both internal and external. Our natural productions have not a lucrative vent; and this observation applies equally to the products of industry. From this fatal principle results the necessary consequence of depopulation; because all flee from the poor, in the same way as many poor neglect to marry and settle, simply because they are poor.

“Hence I return to my proposition, that the extreme poverty to which my beloved Quito is reduced, is and ought to be