A man has produced
wheat. He throws it into the widest national circulation he can find
for it, and receives in exchange, what? Some dollars; that is to say
bills, bonds, infinitely divisible, by means of which it becomes
lawful for him to withdraw from national circulation, whenever he
thinks it advisable, and by just agreement, such articles as he may
need or wish. In fine, at the end of the operation he will have
withdrawn from the mass the exact equivalent of what he threw into it,
and in value his consumption will precisely equal his production.
If the foreign exchanges of that nation are free, it is no longer into
_national_, but into _general_ circulation that each one throws his
products, and from which he draws his returns. He has not to inquire
whether what he delivers up for general circulation is purchased by a
fellow-countryman or a foreigner; whether the goods he receives came
to him from a Frenchman or an Englishman; whether the objects for
which, in accordance with his needs, he, in the end, exchanges his
bills, are made on this or that side of the Atlantic or the St.
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