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Writing: A Remedy for the Country

A Remedy for the Country, § 24

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§ 24

From what has already been said above, every thoughtful person will easily find how damaging such a basis for conversion or a falling rate must be to our public affairs.

I regard it as harmful in the highest degree, first, to the Bank, which has already extended its credit far beyond reason and would hereby fall victim to banknote capitalists who have exploited the state of the market, speculated in loans and properties, and increased their daler holdings many times over at the nation’s expense. For example, if someone had bought himself a property worth 90,000 daler kmt in 1736 and had paid the purchase price at the then current rate with 10,000 riksdaler specie but had sold the same property in 1762, without any particular improvement, for 270,000 daler in banknotes, which at the then current rate of 108 mark corresponded exactly to the purchase price, a sum that he had made productive in the longer or shorter term by lending it against promissory notes in daler kmt but after the passage of six to eight years, when the rate would again be 36 mark, presented to the Bank for redemption, he must receive 30,000 riksdaler specie in exchange, or three times the original capital.

I then ask with good reason, first, is he entitled to such a large sum? and second, who in this case is making him wealthy? Is it not the Bank, whose banknotes in 1762 were not worth more than 10,000 riksdaler but when he has to redeem them will be worth 30,000 riksdaler, or three times as much?

Even if the Bank were as wealthy as water is deep, it is nevertheless the private money-capital of the subjects who have deposited it there in good faith that is plundered in this way, but when the Bank is moreover unable to redeem its promissory notes at a 70-mark rate, how hazardous must the harder rate of conversion then not become for the whole country?

Moreover, if I had borrowed from the Bank, say, 10,000 daler, and had reason to believe that the approved lowering of the rate could be implemented within a few years, it is obvious that I, as a rational person, although possessing this amount of capital in banknotes, would rather, at a rate of 70 mark, repay my debt in riksdaler, or, if there was no other solution, have the property I had put up as collateral sold at auction on behalf of the Bank and pay the Bank off in that way, as I would without fail be able to demand from the Bank 1,111 1/9 riksdaler specie for my banknotes after a few years, although I had paid 571 3/7 riksdaler for them this year, and I could likewise be sure that I would always be able to buy myself a better property for 1,111 1/9 riksdaler than for 571 3/7 riksdaler.

I now ask again: who is the loser here? The Bank.

I will probably be told: It is good when the Bank acquires valuables; it will be all the better able to convert its banknotes when they are one day presented for redemption. That is true, dear reader! but consider how much it will receive. Barely more than half of what it has to pay out. I therefore ask again: from where is the other half, or 540 riksdaler, to be taken? From the Bank’s own funds; that is, from the properties of the citizens.

 

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