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Front Page Titles (by Subject) II. The Rate of Exchange. - Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume III: The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole
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II. The Rate of Exchange. - Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume III: The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole [1894]Edition used:Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume III: The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole, by Karl Marx. Ed. Federick Engels. Trans. from the 1st German edition by Ernest Untermann (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr and Co. Cooperative, 1909).
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II. The Rate of Exchange.[The barometer for the international movement of the money metals is the rate of exchange. If England has more payments to make to Germany than Germany to England, the price of marks, expressed in sterling, rises in London, and the price of sterling, expressed in marks, falls in Hamburg and Berlin. If this overbalance of monetary obligations of England toward Germany is not equalised, for instance, by over purchases of Germany in England, the sterling price for marks on bills of exchange on Germany must rise to a point, where it will pay to send metal (gold coin or bullion) from England to Germany in payment of obligations, instead of sending bills of exchange. This is the typical course of things. How this raising of the rate of interest affects the rates of exchange, is shown by the following testimony before the Committee of the Lower House concerning bank legislation in 1857 (quoted as B. A., or B. C., 1857.) John Stuart Mill: 2176. "When the business has become difficult...a considerable fall in the price of securities takes place...foreigners order the buying of railroad shares here in England, or English owners of foreign railroad shares sell them to foreign countries...to that extent the transfer of gold is avoided."—2182. "A large and rich class of bankers and dealers in securities, by whom the equalisation of the rate of interest and the equalisation of the commercial barometric pressure between the different countries is generally accomplished...is always on the lookout for the purchase of securities, which promise a rise in price...the proper place to buy them will be the country which sends gold abroad."—2183. "These investments of capital took place to a large extent in 1847, enough to reduce the drain of gold." J. G. Hubbard, Ex-Governor, and since 1838 a Director of the Bank of England: 2545. "There are a large number of European securities...which have a European circulation in all the various money markets, and these papers, as soon as they fall by one or two per cent. in one market, are at once brought up in order to be transferred to markets, where their value has still maintained itself."—2565. "Are not foreign countries considerably in debt to merchants in England?"—..."Very considerably."—2566. "The collection of these debts might, therefore, suffice by itself to explain a very large accumulation of capital in England?"—"In the year 1847 our position was finally restored by our drawing a line through so and so many millions, which America and Russia formerly owed to England." [England owed these same countries at the same time "so and so many millions" for corn and did not forget to "draw a line" also through the greater portion of these by the bankruptcy of the English debtors. See the report on Bank Acts, 1857, in chapter XXX of this work.]—2572. "In 1847 the rate of exchange between England and Petersburg stood very high. When the government letter was issued, which authorized the Bank of England to issue bank notes without adhering to the legally prescribed limit of 14 millions [beyond the gold reserve], the condition was that the discount should be kept at 8%. At that moment, and at that rate of discount, it was a profitable business to have gold shipped from Petersburg to London and to lend it out after its arrival at 8% until the three months' bills of exchange should become due, which had been drawn against the sold gold."—2573. "In all operations with gold many points must be taken into consideration; it depends on the rate of exchange and on the rate of interest, at which money may be invested until the bills drawn against it become due." |

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