DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22140#0336
32o INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL HISTORY.
behalf of the customs duties, is rarely esfective if the population
sides with those who make it their business to break the law.
But of all the articles which make up trade, none is more
difficult for a government to regulate than that of the precious
metals, or for many centuries the movements of silver bullion and
coins. For as I have told you, when a man takes money, he takes
that kind of merchandise—I am speaking of traders only—which
is of the least value to him, unless he can get rid of it in the
shortest possible time, and with the least possible hindrance. If
he imports foreign articles, his object is to trade with them at a
profit. If he imports foreign money, he wishes at once to exchange
it for trade commodities in order that he may make his profits
continuous. No trader from the days of the Plantagenets to those
of the house of Hanover, ever has wished or could wish to retain
more money in his hands than was sufficient for his trade and his
liabilities, and his instincts and experience would lead him to
resist or baffle any expedient of policy which would compel him
to retain what he knew it was his interest to get rid of. The king
strove to limit trade in certain staple produce of England to certain
markets, notably wool and hides. It is certain that the regulations
were evaded, and that trade in these articles was carried on in a
hundred ports. He strove in the same way to secure a balance of
bargain on such trade as he thought he could regulate, and he
complains that the country is denuded of its treasure, when
probably the expedients which he had adopted were the very
means by which the disappearance of treasure was simulated.
There is nothing more absurd, in the economical history of this
and other countries, than the regulations adopted for the control
of the trade in the precious metals. And yet these regulations
and restraints were continued up to 1819, when they were swept
away at the final resumption of cash payments, and the trade in
the precious metals was made free. The fact is, of all articles, the
precious metals are the most mobile or fluid.
Up to comparatively modern times the currency of Europe was
silver. It was so during the Middle Ages ; it was so long after the
discovery of the great American mines at the conclusion of the
sixteenth century, for the principal supply of the New World was
silver. This was partly due to custom, partly to the fact that
behalf of the customs duties, is rarely esfective if the population
sides with those who make it their business to break the law.
But of all the articles which make up trade, none is more
difficult for a government to regulate than that of the precious
metals, or for many centuries the movements of silver bullion and
coins. For as I have told you, when a man takes money, he takes
that kind of merchandise—I am speaking of traders only—which
is of the least value to him, unless he can get rid of it in the
shortest possible time, and with the least possible hindrance. If
he imports foreign articles, his object is to trade with them at a
profit. If he imports foreign money, he wishes at once to exchange
it for trade commodities in order that he may make his profits
continuous. No trader from the days of the Plantagenets to those
of the house of Hanover, ever has wished or could wish to retain
more money in his hands than was sufficient for his trade and his
liabilities, and his instincts and experience would lead him to
resist or baffle any expedient of policy which would compel him
to retain what he knew it was his interest to get rid of. The king
strove to limit trade in certain staple produce of England to certain
markets, notably wool and hides. It is certain that the regulations
were evaded, and that trade in these articles was carried on in a
hundred ports. He strove in the same way to secure a balance of
bargain on such trade as he thought he could regulate, and he
complains that the country is denuded of its treasure, when
probably the expedients which he had adopted were the very
means by which the disappearance of treasure was simulated.
There is nothing more absurd, in the economical history of this
and other countries, than the regulations adopted for the control
of the trade in the precious metals. And yet these regulations
and restraints were continued up to 1819, when they were swept
away at the final resumption of cash payments, and the trade in
the precious metals was made free. The fact is, of all articles, the
precious metals are the most mobile or fluid.
Up to comparatively modern times the currency of Europe was
silver. It was so during the Middle Ages ; it was so long after the
discovery of the great American mines at the conclusion of the
sixteenth century, for the principal supply of the New World was
silver. This was partly due to custom, partly to the fact that