XII.: Foreign states debasing their coins, is not a reason for the debasing of ours.

31. Some people are so fond of the project of tampering with the standard of money, that any thing will serve them as a plea for that purpose; and, I think, nothing can well be poorer than the following, which yet I have heard urged with some vehemence, viz. “that certain foreign states having debased their coins, we should therefore debase ours.” This empty plea, for it cannot be called an argument, hath been spoken to, in the preceding chapter. It might, in truth, as well be said, that we ought to change our language, as change our standard; the plea here brought for the one, being equally conclusive for the other.

It hath been before shewed, that it is out of the power of laws directly, either to augment or diminish the values of coins in general, otherwise than as by their oblique influence, they may increase or diminish the whole quantity of them in circulation. But states may set a higher value upon one sort of coins, in proportion to others, than is done by their neighbours; as we have done by gold coins in respect to silver: The consequence of which, always hath been, and always will be, the draining away of the coins that are undervalued. States may, if they please, go yet farther, and set a higher value upon some specie of coins, than they do upon others made of the same metal; and the consequence will be as before, the draining away of those that are least valued, and leaving them always poorer upon the whole; for the coins that are undervalued, will always go away at some undervalue. But of this more hereafter.

There are, perhaps, no greater instances of human weakness, than the various and contradictory measures that have been pursued, almost all the world over, about coins. And even, in the same country, opposite measures have been taken, without any difference of circumstance to occasion them: But, an opinion it seems prevailed, that, since one method had not the desired effect, the contrary must needs succeed; and this again failing, some new course was again taken, and so on. The effects of all the various tamperings that have been made with coins, have ever proved, and ever will prove, that no alteration can be made in the standard of money, but what will be injurious many ways to those who make it; and it may be presumed, that no argument can be brought for that wild measure, either from what hath been done here or elsewhere, but what will conclude strongly on the other side of the question.