The rise of prices following on the discovery of the American mines was one of the subjects which first attracted theattention of theorists.This rise brought about a great and gradually increasing disturbance of existing economic relations,and so produced much perplexity and anxiety,which were all the more felt because the cause of the change was notunderstood.To this was added the loss and inconvenience arising from the debasement of the currency often resorted to bysovereigns as well as by republican states.Italy suffered most from this latter abuse,which was multiplied by her politicaldivisions.It was this evil which called forth the work of Count Gasparo Scaruffi (Discorso sopra le monete e della veraproporzione fra l'oro e l'argento ,1582).In this he put forward the bold idea of a universal money,everywhere identical insize,shape,composition,and designation.The project was,of course,premature,and was not adopted even by the Italianprinces to whom the author specially appealed;but the reform is one which,doubtless,the future will see realised.GianDonato Turbolo,master of the Neapolitan mint,in his Discorsi e Relazioni,1629,protested against any tampering with thecurrency.Another treatise relating to the subject of money was that of the Florentine Bernardo Davanzati,otherwise knownas the able translator of Tacitus,Lezioni delle Monete ,1588.It is a slight and somewhat superficial production,onlyremarkable as written with conciseness and elegance of style.(6)A French writer who dealt with the question of money,but from a different point of view,was Jean Bodin.In his Réponseaux paradoxes de M.Malestroit touchant l'enchérissement de toutes les choses et des monnaies ,1568,and in his Discourssur le rehaussement et la diminution des monnaies ,1578,he showed a more rational appreciation than many of hiscontemporaries of the causes of the revolution in prices,and the relation of the variations in money to the market values ofwares in general as well as to the wages of labour.He saw that the amount of money in circulation did not constitute thewealth of the community,and that the prohibition of the export of the precious metals was useless,because renderedinoperative by the necessities of trade.Bodin is no inconsiderable figure in the literary history of the epoch,and did notconfine his attention to economic problems;in his Six livres de la République ,about 1576,he studies the general conditionsof the prosperity and stability of states.In harmony with the conditions of his age,he approves of absolute Governments asthe most competent to ensure the security and well-being of their subjects.He enters into an elaborate defence of individualproperty against Plato and More,rather perhaps because the scheme of his work required the treatment of that theme thanbecause it was practically urgent in his day,when the excesses of the Anabaptists had produced a strong feeling againstcommunistic doctrines.He is under the general influence of the mercantilist views,and approves of energetic Governmentalinterference in industrial matters,of high taxes on foreign manufactures and low duties on raw materials and articles of food,and attaches great importance to a dense population.But he is not a blind follower of the system;he wishes for unlimitedfreedom of trade in many cases;and he is in advance of his more eminent contemporary Montaigne (7)in perceiving that thegain of one nation is not necessarily the loss of another.To the public finances,which he calls the sinews of the State,hedevotes much attention,and insists on the duties of the Government in respect to the right adjustment of taxation.In generalhe deserves the praise of steadily keeping in view the higher aims and interests of society in connection with the regulationand development of its material life.(8)Correct views as to the cause of the general rise of prices are also put forward by the English writer,W.S.(WilliamStafford),in his Briefe Conceipte of English Policy ,published in 1581,and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth.It is in the formof a dialogue,and is written with liveliness and spirit.The author seems to have been acquainted with the writings of Bodin.
He has just ideas as to the nature of money,and fully understands the evils arising from a debased coinage.He describes indetail the way in which the several interests in the country had been affected by such debasement in previous reigns,as wellas by the change in the value of the precious metals.The great popular grievance of his day,the conversion of arable landinto pasture,he attributes chiefly to the restrictions on the export of corn,which he desires to see abolished.But in regard tomanufactures he is at the same point of view with the later mercantilists,and proposes the exclusion of all foreign wareswhich might as well be provided at home,and the prohibition of the export of raw materials intended to be worked upabroad.
Out of the question of money,too,arose the first remarkable German production on political economy which had an originalnational character and addressed the public in the native tongue.The Ernestine Saxon line was inclined (1530)to introduce adebasement of the currency.A pamphlet,Gemeine Stymmen von der Müntze ,was published in opposition to thisproceeding,under the auspices of the Albertine branch,whose policy was sounder in the economic sphere.A reply appearedjustifying the Ernestine project.This was followed by a rejoinder from the Albertine side.The Ernestine pamphlet isdescribed by Roscher as ill-written,obscure,inflated,and,as might be expected from the thesis it maintained,sophistical.
