27 Oct. 1800

Polit. Economy

Paper Mischief

Rise of Prices

[Column 2]

The defalcation from income produced by the degradation is compensated in point

of quantity of wealth by the accession proceeding from the same source for

though the quantity of vendible commodities is not the greater for the addition

to the mass of money neither is it the less.

In this field Through the trite and the paradoxical lies the road to new and

useful truth.

[Column 3]

Anny Notes {Abstract} Rise of Prices Ch. XIV.

Benefit to the community by guaranteeing it against the mischief from rise of

prices by substituting to a paper money over which it has no command a paper

money over which it has a perfect command.

Whatever accession to the mass of money the community has borne by accession to

the mass of Bankers paper, it can bear by the accession to the mass of Annuity

Note paper without greater mischief in this case than in that.

[Column 4]

[...?] Bills of Exchange (for terms longer than the distance) should also be

prohibited, after giving proper notice. For these, add not only to commercial

security but to rise of prices.

It is true, they are extinguished as the term arrives—but then they are

received[?] to the same amount which is always to the amount of the supposed

solvency.

{A man with a Bill for £20 in his hand is as much a lendder[?] as a man with £20

in money or cash notes in his hand.}

Bills of Exchange at distant dates are money imported from future time—from

futurity.

Prohibition of Bills of Exchange would be prohibiting the whole mercantile body

from overtrading themselves and taxing the distressed classes: Bills of Exchange

for short dates save carriage, but so would Annuity Notes.

[Column 5]

The addition to money by metal money can not be prevented, and makes some

compensation by the proportionable addition to the stock of plate.

Addition by paper may be prevented, and makes no such compensation.

Ii is again the mercantile interest As the children of this world been[?] to the

children of light so has always been the mercantile interest to the landed. The

former always arises in their generation than the latter.

Bills of Exchange

Do they not rather diminish than raise prices?—since, being confined in a manner

to the Dealer they encrease the competition between the dealers, and diminish

profit in par stock. Per contra, they pro tanto save dealers from using cash,

and thereby leave so much [...?] to circulate among the consumers.

[Column 6]

{The charge against Paper money has no appearance of fallaciousness “[...?]”

&c.

It occurs immediately, or ought to occur that a House/the building paid for in

paper is not less a House nor less durable, than if paid for in gold. It is not

as paper money but as money that paper money does the mischief.}

[Column 7]

No Good

Argument Contra

Want of Employment—See Poor Plan

Another argument e contrà may be taken from the unemployd state of a considerable

part of the capacity for labour. So many possessors[?] of various descriptions

unemployd! Whence comes this?—whence but for the want of money to employ

them—there paper would supply this want. Most true it is Much capacity for

labour has always been and continues to be lost. But it is all in fragments. To

“gather together the fragments of labour that nothing be lost” is an object/a

miracle that can not be accomplished. I had almost said a miracle that can not

be wrought, without an appropriate institution, adapted to the purpose. Of such

an institution, an Outline been sketched/offered[?].

The pipe[?] has been sounded—but whatever was the cause[?]—by lips not

sufficiently hallowed so it is—[...?] have not yet been found.

Men men that I know of have stood up to dance[?] highest from [...?]

[...?]—bootless admiration/bootless lifeless admiration from the few—such is the

lot of him who casts forth truths/ideas however useful into an age not ripe for

them.

[Column 8]

Money/coined metal is a sort of pledge—a pledge of the best kind—for so much

plate as might be made out of it.

No Good

{The encrease or decrease of wealth depends on the proportion between labour

employd in the production of productive articles and articles of slow[?]

consumption on the one hand, and labour employd in non-production or in the

production of articles of quick consumption on the other.

The quantity of money paid for labour has no tendency to make any change in

these proportions}

[Column 9]

Prefat

There is scarce room for novelty in measures—but abundant for trains of close

and just reasoning by which the effects and comparative utility of measures may

be ascertained.

In this field—through the paradoxical lies the road to useful truth.

The language of large minds is unintelligible to ordinary/little ones