If they make their thousand pounds into two
thousand by writing new notes, their two thousand pounds are still worth
ten huts and a cask of biscuit. And the law of relative value is the
same for all the world, and all the people in it, and all their property,
as for ten men on a rock. Therefore, money is truly and finally lost in
the degree in which its value is taken from it (ceasing in that degree to
be money at all); and it is truly gained in the degree in which value is
added to it. Thus, suppose the money coined by the nation be a fixed
sum, and divided very minutely (say into francs and cents), and neither
to be added to nor diminished. Then every grain of food and inch of
lodging added to its possessions makes every cent in its pockets worth
proportionally more, and every gain of food it consumes, and inch of roof
it allows to fall to ruin, makes every cent in its pockets worth less;
and this with mathematical precision. The immediate value of the money
at particular times and places depends, indeed, on the humors of the
possessors of property; but the nation is in the one case gradually
getting richer, and will feel the pressure of poverty steadily everywhere
relaxing, whatever the humors of individuals may be; and, in the other
case, is gradually growing poorer, and the pressure of its poverty will
every day tell more and more, in ways that it cannot explain, but will
most bitterly feel.
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