A Select Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts on Money
VI.: National interest, how influenced by the course of exchange.
19th Century John Ramsay McCulloch (ed.) English- It seems, upon the first view of the thing, that a country which oweth a ballance to another, must pay a præmium upon all the bills that pass between them. As, supposing that in the accounts betwixt England and Holland, we owe the Dutch an 100,000 ounces; and that they owe us 90,000 ounces; and supposing also that this ballance of 10,000 ounces which we owe to them, brings the exchange against us one per cent. It seems, I say, as if we must pay this one per cent. not merely upon the ballance of 10,000, but upon the whole 100,000; and on the other hand, that we shall receive short from them one per cent. upon the whole 90,000 which they owed us; that is, that we must pay the Dutch 101,000, whilst they will discharge their debt to us with 89,100; so that our whole loss, upon the above suppositions, amounts to 1,900. This at first view seems to be the exact state of the case; but upon examining this matter a little closer, I think, it will appear that the loss to England by the exchange, is ordinarily no more than what falls upon the ballance of 10,000. Suppose the whole account at London to stand betwixt two persons, both Englishmen; B at London oweth D at Amsterdam an 100,000; C another Dutchman at Amsterdam oweth A at London 90,000. B pays to A 91,000 for a bill upon C to pay D 90,000; by this transaction the 90,000 Dutch debt at London is quite cleared, and what B lost was gained by A. If the affair had been transacted at Amsterdam, the gain would have fallen to the share of the debtor C, and the loss on the creditor D; for C with 89,100 would have purchased of D a bill for 90,000 upon B. But although affairs of this kind are always transacted between several persons, yet at last it comes to the same thing; and the whole gains, so far as bills will reach in liquidating the accounts, falls to the creditors on one side of the water, and to the debtors on the other. In the case above supposed, if some of the Dutch creditors reside at London, or some of the English creditors at Amsterdam, this will turn the scale to the prejudice of England. These observations plainly shew, that any calculations of national profit or loss from the course of exchange, must needs be very precarious. Yet is it almost certain that by these transactions, that country will sustain some loss against which the exchange bears; and there is no other way of bringing the ballance even, but by the exportation of goods or bullion.