Distribution Chapter 19 Of Money, Considered as an Imported Commodity 1. Money, or the material of which it is composed, is, in Great Britain, and in most other countries, a foreign commodity. In the discussion into which we are now about to enter, I shall use the terms Money and the Precious Metals indiscriminately.
Money is brought into a country in two different ways.
It is also imported in its other character of a medium of exchange, to pay some debt due to the country, either for goods exported or on any other account. The existence of these two distinct modes in which money flows into a country, while other commodities are habitually introduced only in the first of these modes, occasions somewhat more of complexity and obscurity than exists in the case of other commodities, and for this reason only is any special and minute exposition necessary . In so far as the precious metals are imported in the ordinary way of commerce, their value must depend on the same causes, and conform to the same laws, as the value of any other foreign production. It is in this mode chiefly that gold and silver diffuse themselves from the mining countries into all other parts of the commercial world. They must exchange in such proportions as will leave no unsatisfied demand on either side, to alter values by its competition.