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Writing: A Remedy for the Country

A Remedy for the Country, § 22

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§ 22

I now come to the third thing that was to be proved, namely that such a reduction of the increased tale-value of the banknotes is unnecessary. Once the reader and I are in agreement upon the simplest and most natural basis of finances, without which no financial system has been successful or able to endure, namely that everyone engaged in trade is entitled to receive for a negotiable commodity a cash payment corresponding to the value of that commodity, then everyone who is not in the grip of strange prejudices but exercises common sense will easily grasp that it is all the same to me whether the quantity of copper or silver that I am to receive for my commodity is described as 9 or 18 daler smt or kmt or in banknotes, as long as I know how much I will receive and actually ought to receive.

As far as banknotes as such are concerned, although they do not in themselves have any intrinsic value or contain any kind of metal that could constitute money, they do nonetheless acquire the value at which the Bank undertakes to redeem them, as long as the possessor is allowed, whenever he so wishes, to receive his property from the Bank in the same way as from a private individual, a right that every note-holder possesses in the case of all other European banks and without which neither a native nor a foreigner would feel that he had full security.

It would seem undeniable that the rise in the tale-value has caused the kingdom indescribable harm, owing to the fact that the prices of commodities were unsettled during the first few years and could not quickly adapt themselves to the rise but were paid, to the considerable harm of the productive occupations, in the old daler denomination, although it had in reality been debased.

In that way, all purchases and contracts incurred for a longer term were disrupted, the money-rents of the Crown were diminished and public officials lost part of their original salaries.

In this regard, however, one must distinguish carefully between what is essentiale and accidentale in a state. An inevitable part of the former is that people who live in societies must be able to support themselves by working and trading, without which the society cannot possibly be sustained. Reductions in the money-salaries of public officials and Crown rents are among the latter.

Both of these things need to be dealt with and attended to with care, though with the difference that we pay attention mainly to the former and in no way accept any financial proposals to remedy the latter that would at the same time upset the former.

 

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