Page:The Real Cause of the High Price of Gold Bullion.djvu/34

 course of the market enables him to make a profit. The Bank charges for lodgement and assaying, from 2 to 2½ per cent.

The price of Coin may be fixed by a Mint Indenture, and confined to home circulation, as the price of tine silver may be fixed by the Hamburgh Bank, so long as it remains in the Bank. But when coin by melting becomes bullion, or when bank silver is taken from the Bank of Hamburgh, and gets into the market, they become subject equally to the variations of the market, and follow the course of demand, and rise and fall in price accordingly.

I have thus tried to suggest the errors which have appeared with regard to the nature of our money unit or standard—the supposed excess of the issues of Bank Notes—the argument which has been induced from the excess of currency, at present over its amount in 1810—and from imagining identical propositions to be logical distinctions.

I have also suggested, that the real cause of increased prices of bullion, as well as of other articles, is attributable, not to the excess of currency, but to the excess of taxation.

I have suggested, that the remedies hitherto proposed to bring back our currency to a metallic state, are ineffectual or pernicious—and I have submitted, that the best line to take under existing circumstances, is to follow the course of the market, and the current order of things, without attempting either absurdities or impossibilities.

If a system for contracting our currency, for the sole purpose of forcing the price of Gold to Mint price, is to be inflicted upon the nation, upon the principle that the present currency is excessive in amount, at least let the fact be proved. If upon examination it is actually perabundant.