Sir,All those who cultivate the new and beautiful science of Political Economy desire to read the work with which you have just enriched that subject.
You are not one of those authors who address the public without having something to inform them;and when to the celebrity of the writer is joined the importance of the subject,when the subject is of no less importance to society,than to inform them what are their means of existence and enjoyment,it is to be supposed that the reader's curiosity must be doubly excited.
I shall not undertake,Sir,to join my suffrage to that of the public,by pointing out every thing that is ingenious,and at the same time just,in your work;this would be too great a task.Nor shall I undertake to enter into a discussion with you,upon some points to which you seem to me to attach an importance that they scarcely appear to merit.I shall not here tire either the public or you by dull controversies.But,I say it with sorrow,that there are some fundamental principles discoverable in your doctrine,which,were they to be admitted on so powerful an authority as yours,might cause to retrograde a science,the progress of which you are so good as to assist by your extensive knowledge and talent.
And,in the first place,what fixes my attention,because all the interest of the moment is attached to it,is,from whence comes that general overstock of all the markets of the universe,to which goods are incessantly carried which sell at a loss?--Whence comes it that in the interior of each state,with a want of action in unison with all the developments of industry,whence comes,I say,that universal difficulty that .is experienced in obtaining lucrative employ?And when the cause of this chronic malady is discovered,what are the means of cure?These are questions upon which the happiness and tranquillity of nations depend.Wherefore I cannot think a discussion tending to elucidate them will be unworthy your attention,and that of an enlightened public.
All those who,since Adam Smith,have turned their attention to Political Economy,agree that in reality we do not buy articles of consumption with money,the circulating medium with which we pay for them.We must in the first instance have bought this money itself by the sale of our produce.
To a proprietor of a mine,the silver money is a produce with which he buys what he has occasion for.To all those through whose hands this silver afterwards passes,it is only the price of the produce which they themselves have raised by means of their property in land,their capitals,or their industry.In selling them they in the first place exchange them for money,and afterwards they exchange the money for articles of consumption.
It is therefore really and absolutely with their produce that they make their purchases:therefore it is impossible for them to purchase any articles whatever,to a greater amount than those they have produced,either by themselves or through the means of their capital or their land.
From these premises I have drawn a conclusion which appears to me evident,l but the consequences of which appear to have alarmed you.I had said --As no one can purchase the produce of another except with his own produce,as the amount for which we can buy is equal to that which we can produce,the.more we can produce the more we can purchase.From whence proceeds this other conclusion,which you refuse to admit --That if certain commodities do not sell,it is because others are not produced,and that it is the raising produce alone which opens a market for the sale of produce.
I know that this proposition has a paradoxical complexion,which creates a prejudice against it.I know that one has much greater reason to expect to be supported by vulgar prejudices,when one asserts that the cause of too much produce is because all the world is employed in raising it.--That instead of continually producing,one ought to mutiply barren consumptions,and expend the old capital instead of accumulating new.This doctrine has,indeed,probability on its side;it can be supported by arguments,facts may be interpreted in its favor.But,Sir,when Copernieus and Galileo taught,for the first time,that the sun,although we see it rise every morning in the east,magnificently pass over our heads at noon,and precipitate itself towards the west in the evening,still does not move from its place,they had also universal prejudice against them,the opinions of the Ancients,and the evidence of the senses.Ought they on that account to relinquish those demonstrations which were produced by a sound judgment?I should do you an injustice to doubt your answer.
Besides,when I assert that produce opens a vent for produce;that the means of industry,whatever they may be,left to themselves,always incline themselves to those articles which are the most necessary to nations,and that these necessary articles create at the same time fresh populations,and fresh enjoyments for those populations,all probability is not against me.
Let us go back only two hundred years,and suppose that a merchant had taken a rich cargo to the sites on which the present cities of New York and Philadelphia stand --Would he have sold it?Suppose that,without failing a victim to the natives,he had succeeded in laying the foundation of an agricultural or a manufactural establishment:Would he have sold there any one of his articles?Most certainly not.He would have been obliged to consume them all himself.Why do we see it so different in our days?
Why,as soon as goods arrive,or are manufactured at Philadelphia or New York,are we sure to sell them at the course of exchange?It appears evident to me that it is because the farmers,the merchants,and at present the manufacturers,even of New York and Philadelphia,and of the surrounding provinces,produce,and import produce,by the means of which they acquire that which is offered to them by others.
