Now Spain ultimately became poor, in spite of the influx of gold and silver from the American mines, because industries of all kinds declined.  People were diverted from useful callings by the mighty delusion which gold discoveries created.  These discoveries had the same effect on industry, which is the wealth of nations, as the support of standing armies has in our day.  They diverted men from legitimate callings.  The miners had to be supported like soldiers; and, worse, the sudden influx of gold and silver intoxicated men and stimulated speculation.  An army of speculators do not enrich a nation, since they rob each other.  They cause money to change hands; they do not stimulate industry.  They do not create wealth; they simply make it flow from one person to another.

But speculations sometimes create activity in enterprise; they inflame desires for wealth, and cause people to make greater exertions.  In that sense the discovery of American mines gave a stimulus to commerce and travel and energy.  People rushed to America for gold:  these people had to be fed and clothed.  Then farmers and manufacturers followed the gold-hunters; they tilled the soil to feed the miners.  The new farms which dotted the region of the gold-diggers added to the wealth of the country in which the mines were located.  Colonization followed gold-digging.  But it was America that became enriched, not the old countries from which the miners came, except so far as the old countries furnished tools and ships and fabrics, for doubtless commerce and manufacturing were stimulated.  So far, the wealth of the world increased; but the men who returned to riot in luxury and idleness did not stimulate enterprise.  They made others idle also.  The necessity of labor was lost sight of.

And yet if one country became idle, another country may have become industrious.  There can be but little question that the discovery of the American mines gave commerce and manufactures and agriculture, on the whole, a stimulus.  This was particularly seen in England.  England grew rich from industry and enterprise, as Spain became poor from idleness and luxury.  The silver and gold, diffused throughout Europe, ultimately found their way into the pockets of Englishmen, who made a market for their manufactures.  It was not alone the precious metals which enriched England, but the will and power to produce those articles of industry for which the rest of the world parted with their gold and silver.  What has made France rich since the Revolution?  Those innumerable articles of taste and elegance—­fabrics and wines—­for which all Europe parted with their specie; not war, not conquest, not mines.  Why till recently was Germany so poor?  Because it had so little to sell to other nations; because industry was cramped by standing armies and despotic governments.