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A Guide to Modern English History: 1815-1830. (1880)
A Guide to Modern English History 1815-1830 - 1880 Author:William Johnson Cory Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: GOLD COIN. 109 In the reign of Charles II., Mr. Evelyn, one of the most enlightened gentlemen of the age, was shocked at the sight of houses rising in London ... more »which were built partly of foreign timber, since the nation was, he thought, impoverishing itself by losing the gold spent on the timber. The belief thus entertained by a patriot who was intimate with statesmen and tinged with science was one of the false theories which beset not so much the common people as their advisers. To keep gold in the country has seemed to many shrewd practical men the proper object of commercial policy. They are under at least two delusions. They think that gold is wealth, in such a sense that wealth which is not gold is valuable only ki so far as it procures gold. They think also that commerce is a game in which nations are the players, and that one nation loses as another wins, just as one gambler empties and another fills his purse. The plain truth about gold is accepted at first sight by boys and girls born into an age of science and inheriting some conceptions which were not within the birthright of Mr. Evelyn. But they hardly grasp the plain truth unless they examine the error which it cancels. Unless they have explored the various mistakes made in the four centuries of modern history, made again and again down to their own schooldays, they cannot be assured, by the mere IIO TEANSPORT OF GOLD BEYOND SEA. repetition of a formula, against a hasty assent to a plausible doctrine set forth by a ' practical man.' The old mistake is likely to be in vogue still, for the writers in newspapers who record the ups and downs of stocks and shares announce such an event as the shipment of a ton of gold with earnestness and even anxiety, whilst they take no notice of the export of a million ton...« less