used to buy
useful things made elsewhere. Nevertheless, there is still a danger that
they may starve on heaps of gold. What would it be if the law prohibited
exportation? As to the second supposition--that of the gold which we
obtain by trade; it is an advantage, or the reverse, according as the
country stands more or less in need of it, compared to its wants of the
useful things which must be given up in order to obtain it. It is not
for the law to judge of this, but for those who are concerned in it; for
if the law should start upon this principle, that gold is preferable to
useful things, whatever may be their value, and if it should act
effectually in this sense, it would tend to make France another
California, where there would be a great deal of cash to spend, and
nothing to buy. It is the very same system which is represented by
Midas.

B. The gold which is imported implies that a _useful thing_ is
_ex_ported, and in this respect there is a satisfaction withdrawn from
the country. But is there not a corresponding benefit? And will not this
gold be the source of a number of new satisfactions, by circulating from
hand to hand, and inciting to labour and industry, until at length it
leaves the country in its turn, and causes the importation of some
useful thing?

F. Now you have come to the heart of the question. Is it true that a
crown is the principle which causes the production of all the objects
whose exchange it facilitates? It is very clear that a piece of five
francs is only _worth_ five francs; but we are led to believe that this
value has a particular character: that it is not consumed like other
things, or that it is exhausted very gradually; that it renews itself,
as it were, in each transaction; and that, finally this crown has been
worth five francs, as many times as it has accomplished
transactions--that it is of itself worth all the things for which it
has been successively exchanged; and this is believed, because it is
supposed that without this crown these things would never have been
produced. It is said, the shoemaker would have sold fewer shoes,
consequently he would have bought less of the butcher; the butcher would
not have gone so often to the grocer, the grocer to the doctor, the
doctor to the lawyer, and so on.

B. No one can dispute that.

F. This is the time, then, to analyse the true function of cash,
independently of mines and importations. You have a crown. What does it
imply in y