WCP1611

[1]¹

[No address]²

July 15: 1879

My dear Sir

Pray forgive me, if I say to you what I say to every pupil and to every person with whom I discuss on P: E³ — I cannot myself use, nor accept from others as a basis of discussion in this region; the word represent. For me it has no meaning here, nor, as far as I [have] ever been able to discover, has it for any other person. It is a metaphorical word, loaded with ambiguity [2] and obscurity. Let us deal with the realities which underlie it.

You will not therefore,⁴ I hope, be angry if I say that I do not understand your first page, in which the word so largely figures.⁵

I fear you have not grasped the nature of money. It is simply a tool — absolutely nothing more, constructed to get over the difficulties of single barter: without it, most[?] exchanges would have stuck fast.

It is a kind of cart, transferring ownership, as a wheeled cart transfers weights.

It acts by double barter. A hat is bartered against a sovereign, because the cost of making a sovereign is equal to the cost of [3] of making a hat. The hatter then barters the sovereign for an umbrella, and then the exchange is completed: a hat has been exchanged for an umbrella —

Money, as Aristotle pointed out, does its work by means of being a commodity: it is the gold of the sovereign which is the tool.

Money adds no wealth whatever to a country, for it has to be purchased with an equal amount of goods: but it is most useful for the service which it renders, precisely as a cart.

Money lies wholly outside your discussion: it has no part in it.

In a civilised country, actual money is very little used — only [4] for cash payments, which are relatively few in amount. Very few persons indeed possess much property[?] in money — banks have a certain amount. They are kind of store-houses for it.—

Bank-notes, cheques, bills, bonds, &c. are not money: in themselves they are only pieces of paper. Leaving foreign nations out of account: if they were all suddenly burnt, the nation would not be one shilling the poorer. Some w[oul]^d be richer, others poorer; that w[oul]^d be all. These paper tools are tickets entitling to demand money: but the money is very little called for: and the same money might settle multitudes of them[?] in one day. [5]⁶ Foreign nations may owe a great deal of money to England. But what does that mean? That⁷ England sent away goods at a preceding time, and has not yet received the equivalent return of goods. Clearly in such cases, after a long period, the trade may near[?] the cost of goods on one side only: nevertheless it is nothing but the old tale at last, goods for goods. Hence you say truly, that under such conditions "goods may come to us without a corresponding quantity of our goods — now making — being taken in exchange." ⁸ Foreigners are paying their debts — that is all. You say that this is "the essence of your whole argument from the beginning." but [6] this is only an unfinished state of things completing itself. This is not trade — except the antecedent⁹ despatch of goods from us be taken into account. I never for an instant denied the existence of such[?], protective[?], one-sided despatch of goods. I am as familiar with it as with my A.B:C. —

No doubt — it is well known that "American and other securities are much less largely held than a few years back": the Americans &c are paying their debts with goods: and this is one reason of our imports [are] exceeding exports.

I do not deny that protected countries may send us at times [7] their protected goods. These are palpable irregularities. They may arise from many causes. Our manufacturing state may be troubled — workmen on strike, refusing to work energetically — or, as occasionally & often in America, some very clever new machinery has been invented — or the foreigners under discussion[?] may sell us their goods at a great loss — and so on.

But, I repeat, protection is permanently inconceivable unless it is needed to keep our goods out — and that [it] is irresistibly conclusive that[?] our[s] are cheaper. I agree here [8] with Lowe.¹⁰ Were it otherwise, the protection laws would be a heap of dead letters — not needed.

English goods could not [1illeg. word], because the fact that the foreign goods are sold here demonstrates that they are the cheaper.

This correspondence is surely[?] unfit for publication. The thought never crossed my brain: it is too desultory and irregular. If I c[oul]^d find time I should be quite willing to go over the ground in a more regular and formal manner.

Y[our]^s very faith[full]^y | B Price [signature]