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Writing: The National Gain

The National Gain, § 7

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§ 7

Gold and silver are indeed the most precious metals but do not therefore by any means always increase the national profit, as they have to be extracted from the ground. All mercantile goods can be exchanged for the amount of these metals that corresponds to their value. Nor is a ducat ever so red that it cannot buy some bread, as our forefathers used to say.

Would it not perhaps be necessary to consider whether the 38 marker and 4 lod of gold and 5,464 marker and ½ lod of silver that have been produced between the beginning of 1760 and the end of 1764 equal the expenditure and labour employed for that, together with the land-rent of several parishes allocated to it and other things, or whether many times more gold and silver could not have been imported at the highest exchange rate, whether such patriotism and love for Swedish gold and silver really has increased the national profit, or whether they only have to be subsidized in the hope of a higher yield in the future?

May it not also be that the discontents and the poverty of the workers and the country people living at and around the ironworks, when they are forced to work there, are evidence of a loss to the nation and of their wish to use their time and energies on what would be more useful to themselves and to the kingdom?

I am not referring here to those ironworks that exist without creating any problems for the country people and the workers; they are assets just as valuable to the kingdom as its agriculture, commerce and manufactures.

 

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