§ 29 

We complain of the consequences, but we do not want to go to the source from which they arise. As soon as I say anything about free trade I get the answer: "We must not mix up such private matters with public affairs." I do not know what to say. Either we read nothing or we think little.

Is not the malady of Foreign Exchange the greatest restraint of trade in the world? Can we think of any other remedy than making trade free?

There are especially two chief remedies for this: the first is, without respect of persons, to break the power of those who have exercised the tyranny of Bills, so that they are rendered incapable of doing anything more. If this cannot be done now, it is obvious that the country has given up too much and is now obliged to dread those weapons which it has itself put into their hands. When power is gone, it is better to bow the head.

The second is to repeal such Statutes as in any way impede trade and kill industry. If every man had the right and the opportunity to trade with the foreigner himself, there would not be so many who were obliged to sacrifice at the altars of the Exporters in order to be allowed to buy Bills; and to bind them down by Laws and oaths to a reasonable price and in that way expect the recovery of the Realm is, as I see it, to build castles in the air.

Both these remedies are very necessary. The second is of no use if the first does not precede it, and the first can be of no help if the Statutes remain; for then some others must of necessity be put in their place, and it is of small benefit to the Nation whether the autocrat is called Caesar or Octavius. Bad enough, when liberty is gone!

Simple though these remedies may seem for a fluctuating rate of Exchange, yet they remain the only true ones, without which no help can be expected.

All agree that to increase the Exports of the Country and to get genuine coins into general circulation will reduce the premium on foreign Bills. The former can never be done without freedom of trade, and no other road to the acquisition of money than that of foreign trade is known to me. If this trade lies in the hands of a few people, similar Exchange Offices will of necessity be kept by them, though under other names than those spoken of before, and these offices must have the same effect upon the Rate of Exchange.

All domestic Operations and the most subtle Financial tricks which do not also open up foreign trade are in my opinion as useless as such a fine artifice as a perpetuum mobile or a water-mill that is to run by itself in a well.

The inventor of these artifices may go as far as he likes. In the end they must stop, nevertheless. And whoever has been most subtle in his calculations must at last see, when his proposal is being tried, that the whole operation has been nothing else than taking from one hand and putting into the other.