Page:Thoughts on the causes and consequences of the present high price of provisions.djvu/25

[ 17 ] be high, in spite of all the efforts of ministers or parliaments, who ought by no means to be blamed, for not effecting impossibilities, and counteracting the nature of things.

Secondly, this cheapness of money in its consequences affects different conditions of men in a very different manner: to some it operates exactly in the same manner as real dearness and scarcity, at the same time that to others it gives considerable advantages. All those who subsist on settled stipends must inevitably be ruined by it: merchants, and traders of all kinds, are greatly benefited; but the labourer and the land-owner are most grievously oppressed. Those who subsist on settled stipends must be ruined; because, if their incomes cannot be advanced in proportion to the decrease of the value of money, and the consequent increase of the prices of every thing, the same nominal sum which would afford affluence in one age, will not prevent starving