th us, stays here, while the gold has gone abroad; verifying
the universal truth, that, if _two_ currencies be allowed to exist, of
different values, that which is cheapest will fill up the whole
circulation. For as much gold as will suffice to pay here a debt of a
given amount, we can buy in England more silver than would be necessary
to pay the same debt here; and from this difference in the value of
silver arises wholly or in a great measure the present apparent
difference in exchange. Spanish dollars sell now in England for four
shillings and nine pence sterling per ounce, equal to one dollar and six
cents. By our standard the same ounce is worth one dollar and sixteen
cents, being a difference of about nine per cent. The true par of
exchange, therefore, is nine per cent. If a merchant here pay one
hundred Spanish dollars for a bill on England, at nominal par, in
sterling money, that is for a bill of L22 10s., the proceeds of this
bill, when paid in England in the legal currency, will there purchase,
at the present price of silver, one hundred and nine Spanish dollars.
Therefore, if the nominal advance on English bills do not exceed nine
per cent, the real exchange is not against this country; in other words,
it does not show that there is any pressing or particular occasion for
the remittance of funds to England.

As little can be inferred from the occasional transfer of United States
stock to England. Considering the interest paid on our stocks, the
entire stability of our credit, and the accumulation of capital in
England, it is not at all wonderful that investments should occasionally
be made in our funds. As a sort of countervailing fact, it may be
stated that English stocks are now actually held in this country,
though probably not to any considerable amount.

I will now proceed, Sir, to state some objections of a more general
nature to the course of Mr. Speaker's observations.

He seems to me to argue the question as if all domestic industry were
confined to the production of manufactured articles; as if the
employment of our own capital and our own labor, in the occupations of
commerce and navigation, were not as emphatically domestic industry as
any other occupation. Some other gentlemen, in the course of the debate,
have spoken of the price paid for every foreign manufactured article as
so much given for the encouragement of foreign labor, to the prejudice
of our own. But is not every such article the pr