For  the  values  of  all  sort4S  of  goods  and  services  relatively  to
each  other  may  remain  the  same,  though  compared  with  money
they  are  different,  and  though  a  smaller  quantity  of  money  is


AND    EFFECTS   OP   A    CHANGE    IN    THAT   VALUE.  499

obtained  on  the  sale  of  any  of  them,  yet  that  smaller  quantity
will  purchase  again  a  correspondingly  larger  quantity  of  goods
and  labour  of  other  sorts,  and  thus  procure  to  the  possessors  of
the  money  the  same  quantity  of  other  things,  as  would  have  been
procured  by  a  direct  barter  in  kind  of  goods  or  labour  of  one
sort  for  goods  or  labour  of  another  sort,  instead  of  the  one  sort
having  been  first  sold  for  money,  and  that  money  again  laid  out
in  the  purchase  of  the  other  sort.
A  metallic  currency  is  liable  to  be  exported  and  imported  from
time  to  time,  for  the  purpose  of  adjusting  the  balance  of  trade,  by
every  country  which  carries  on  a  foreign  commerce ;  and  thus
to  become  scarce  or  plentiful,  and  to  rise  or  fall  in  value,  in  such
countries,  by  all  the  causes  which  occasion  a  change  in  that
balance.  In  other  respects,  however,  a  metallic  currency  is  but
little  liable  to  any  sudden  and  considerable  enlargement  or  con-
traction in  its  amount,  and,  consequently,  to  any  considerable  rise
or  fall  in  its  value ;  and  when  such  enlargement  or  contraction
does  take  place,  it  is  only  by  slow  and  almost  imperceptible  de-
grees, which  accordingly  produce  no  very  striking  consequences.
