Sir James Steuart

“ To ask, whether trade owes its beginning to industry, or industry to trade, is like asking, whether the motion of the heart is owing to the blood, or the motion of the blood to the heart. Both the one and the other, I suppose, are formed by such insensible degrees, that it is impossible to determine where the motion begins. But so soon as the body comes to be perfectly formed, I have little doubt of the heart’s being the principle of circulation. ”

“ Would it be a good answer from any man who held a piece of false money in his hand, for the use of circulation, to skreen himself, by alleging that if it be false, no body need to take it. It is the right of every man to detect false coin; but it is the right of government only to detect false paper: because law only can authorise such an inquisition. Does not the charter of the bank of England establish this right in government? ”

“ Every interest in a nation equally entitled to protection, A wise nation, I apprehend, is actuated by a spirit of justice. Every class, every denomination of inhabitants is equally entitled to the protection of a good government. Whatever step of administration can profit one set of men, to the detriment of another, is ill combined: whatever step can do justice to one set of men who have wrongfully suffered loss, to the detriment of another who have unjustly gained, is well combined. ”

“ Why is there so little coin in England, in proportion to what there is in France? Does any man imagine that this is a mark of poverty? By no means. Let the state proscribe the currency of paper money, the coin will quickly return; because then it will be demanded. But at present the paper supplies its place, and so it goes abroad in order to gain more; whereas in France it remains at home, and produces nothing. The wealth of a nation can no more be estimated by the quantity of its coin, than the wealth of private people by the weight of their purse. ”

“ The cry will be, that trade is ruined, manufacturers are starving, and the state is undone: but the truth will be, that manufacturers will, by their labour, begin to enrich their own nation, at the expence of all those who trade with her, instead of being enriched at the expence of their own countrymen; and only by a revolution in the balance of wealth at home.
It will prove very discouraging to any statesman to attempt a sudden reform of this abuse of consolidated profits, when he is obliged to attack the luxury of his own people. ”

“ Without good faith there is no credit; without credit there is no borrowing of money, no trade, no industry, no circulation, no bread for the lower classes, no luxury, not even the conveniencies of life, for the rich. Under these circumstances, there can be no rule for the rate of interest; because borrowing cannot be frequent and familiar.
In proportion, therefore, as borrowing becomes frequent and familiar, the rule for fixing the rate of a legal interest becomes more practicable to a statesman. ”

“ Currency by tale refers only to the legal standard, as currency by weight doth to the coins themselves? (Essay upon money, Part 2d, p. 79.) Will a person who considers his light shilling as a standard coin, buy more with it than if he considered it by its weight? Will any man in England sell cheaper to a porter, who never considered his shilling farther than to look at the King’s head, than he would to a Jew, who has had his shilling in a scale, and who knows to the fraction of a grain what it weighs? Which way, therefore, (in a trading nation) can money possibly be worth more than its weight? ”

“ There is however a case, where a distant part of a country may suffer in every respect, to wit, when the revolution is sudden; as when a rich man, used to spend his income in his province, for the encouragement of industry, goes to Paris or London, and stays away for a year or two, without minding the interest of the estate he abandons. No doubt that must affect his province in proportion; but in every revolution which comes on gradually by the desertion of such as only lived by their industry, new mouths are born and supply the old. ”

“ The greatest of all the inconveniencies proceeding from a bankruptcy, is the ruin of industry, and the stop put to circulation. Can it then be supposed, that a country might execute so glaring a scheme of treachery to all her neighbours, and still continue her correspondence with them in the open way of trade? Certainly not. Were all foreign trade to be stopt at once, what a revolution would it occasion! The circulation of foreign trade, in the city of London only, exceeds perhaps the amount of all the taxes. ”

“ Consumption then went on as now, in many respects, in proportion to the number of inhabitants; but circulation, that is, alienation by sale, bore no proportion to it.
The effect of every increase in circulation is to swell the amount of taxes; and when they are extensively imposed in a country of industry, the whole currency is thereby made to flow through the coffers of the public, as the blood of the human body flows through the heart, and is by that diffused through every member. ”

“ Extraordinary consumption was no proof of the circulation of any adequate equivalent in favour of the industrious: it had not the effect of giving bread to the poor, nor of proportionally diminishing the wealth of the rich. The great constantly remained great; and the more they were prodigal, the more the small were brought into distress. In one word, luxury had nothing to recommend it, but that quality which solely constitutes the abuse of it in modern times; to wit, the excessive gratification of the passions of the great, which frequently brought on the corruption of their manners. ”