CH. 23

347

NOTES ON MERCANTILISM, ETC.

to have been by Clement Armstrong. . . . He formulates it,for example, in the following terms: “By reason of greatabundance of strange merchandises and wares brought yearlyinto England hath not only caused scarcity of money, but hathdestroyed all handicrafts, whereby great number of commonpeople should have works to get money to pay for their meatand drink, which of very necessity must live idly and beg andsteal”. 1

The best instance to my knowledge of a typically mercan-tilist discussion of a state of affairs of this kind is the debates inthe English House of Commons concerning the scarcity ofmoney, which occurred in 1621, when a serious depressionhad set in, particularly in the cloth export. The conditionswere described very clearly by one of the most influentialmembers of parliament, Sir Edwin Sandys . He stated thatthe farmer and the artificer had to suffer almost everywhere,that looms were standing idle for want of money in thecountry, and that peasants were forced to repudiate theircontracts, “not (thanks be to God ) for want of fruits of theearth, but for want of money”. The situation led to detailedenquiries into where the money could have got to, the wantof which was felt so bitterly. Numerous attacks weredirected against all persons who were supposed to havecontributed either to an export (export surplus) of preciousmetals, or to their disappearance on account of correspondingactivities within the country. 2

Mercantilists were conscious that their policy, asProfessor Heckscher puts it, “killed two birds with onestone”. “On the one hand the country was rid of anunwelcome surplus of goods, which was believed toresult in unemployment, while on the other the totalstock of money in the country was increased ”, 3 withthe resulting advantages of a fall in the rate of interest.

It is impossible to study the notions to which themercantilists were led by their actual experiences, with-out perceiving that there has been a chronic tendencythroughout human history for the propensity to saveto be stronger than the inducement to invest. The

1 Heckscher, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 122.

2 Heckscher, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 223.

3 Heckscher, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 178.