There was indeed a scheme for the payment of our debts which was proposed by an excellent citizen, Mr. Hutchinson, above thirty years ago, and which was much approved of by some men of sense, but never was likely to take effect. He asserted that there was a fallacy in imagining that the public owed this debt, for that really every individual owed a proportional share of it, and paid, in his taxes, a proportional share of the interest, beside the expenses of levying these taxes. Had we not better, then, says he, make a proportional distribution of the debt among us, and each of us contribute a sum suitable to his property, and by that means discharge at once all our funds and public mortgages? He seems not to have considered that the laborious poor pay a considerable part of the taxes by their annual consumptions, though they could not advance at once a proportional part of the sum required; not to mention that property in money and stock in trade might {p95} easily be concealed or disguised, and that visible property in lands and houses would really at last answer for the whole—an inequality and oppression which never would be submitted to. But though this project is never likely to take place, it is not altogether improbable that when the nation become heartily sick of their debts, and are cruelly oppressed by them, some daring projector may arise with visionary schemes for their discharge. And as public credit will begin, by that time, to be a little frail, the least touch will destroy it, as happened in France; and in this manner it will die of the doctor.[31]
But it is more probable that the breach of national faith will be the necessary effect of wars, defeats, misfortunes, and public calamities, or even perhaps of victories and conquests. I must confess, when I see princes and states fighting and quarrelling, amidst their debts, funds, and public mortgages, it always brings to my mind a match of cudgel-playing fought in a china-shop. How can it be expected that sovereigns will spare a species of property which is pernicious to themselves and to the public, when they have so little compassion on lives and properties which are useful to both? Let the time come (and surely it will come) when the new funds created for the exigencies of the year are not subscribed to, and raise not the money projected. Suppose either that the cash of the nation is exhausted, or that our faith, which has hitherto been so {p96} ample, begins to fail us; suppose that in this distress the nation is threatened with an invasion; a rebellion is suspected or broken out at home; a squadron cannot be equipped for want of pay, victuals, or repairs; or even a foreign subsidy cannot be advanced—what must a prince or minister do in such an emergence? The right of self-preservation is unalienable in every individual, much more in every community; and the folly of our statesmen must then be greater than the folly of those who first contracted debt, or, what is more, than that of those who trusted, or continue to trust this security, if these statesmen have the means of safety in their hands and do not employ them. The funds, created and mortgaged, will by that time bring in a large yearly revenue, sufficient for the defence and security of the nation. Money is perhaps lying in the exchequer, ready for the discharge of the quarterly interest. Necessity calls, fear urges, reason exhorts, compassion alone exclaims; the money will immediately be seized for the current service—under the most solemn protestations, perhaps, of being immediately replaced. But no more is requisite; the whole fabric, already tottering, falls to the ground, and buries thousands in its ruins. And this, I think, may be called the natural death of public credit; for to this period it tends as naturally as an animal body to its dissolution and destruction.[32] {p97}
These two events supposed above are calamitous, but not the most calamitous. Thousands are hereby sacrificed to the safety of millions; but we are not without danger that the contrary event may take place, and that millions may be sacrificed for ever to the temporary safety of thousands.[33] Our popular government perhaps will render it difficult or dangerous for a minister to venture on so desperate an expedient as that of a voluntary bankruptcy; and though the House of Lords be altogether composed of the proprietors of lands, and the House of Commons {p98} chiefly, and consequently neither of them can be supposed to have great property in the funds, yet the connections of the members may be so great with the proprietors as to render them more tenacious of public faith than prudence, policy, or even justice, strictly speaking, requires. And perhaps, too, our foreign enemies, or rather enemy (for we have but one to dread) may be so politic as to discover that our safety lies in despair, and may not therefore show the danger open and barefaced till it be inevitable. The balance of power in Europe, our grandfathers, our fathers, and we, have all justly esteemed too unequal to be preserved without our attention and assistance. But our children, weary with the struggle, and fettered with encumbrances, may sit down secure and see their neighbours oppressed and conquered, till at last they themselves and their creditors lie both at the mercy of the conqueror. And this may properly enough be denominated the violent death of our public credit.
These seem to be the events which are not very remote, and which reason foresees as clearly almost as she can do anything that lies in the womb of time. And though the ancients maintained that, in order to reach the gift of prophecy, a certain divine fury or madness was requisite, one may safely affirm that, in order to deliver such prophecies as these, no more is necessary than merely to be in one’s senses, free from the influence of popular madness and delusion.
NOTES, OF PUBLIC CREDIT.
[27] Essay Of the Balance of Trade.
[28] Plut. in Vita Alex. He makes these treasures amount to 80,000 talents, or about 15 millions sterling. Quintus Curtius (lib. 5, cap. 2) says that Alexander found in Susa above 50,000 talents.
[29] Melon, Du Tot, Law, in the pamphlets published in France.
[30] In times of peace and security, when alone it is possible to pay debt, the moneyed interest are averse to receive partial payments, which they know not how to dispose of to advantage, and the landed interest are averse to continue the taxes requisite for that purpose. Why therefore should a minister persevere in a measure so disagreeable to all parties? For the sake, I suppose, of a posterity which he will never see, or of a few reasonable, reflecting people whose united interest perhaps will not be able to secure him the smallest borough in England. It is not likely we shall ever find any minister so bad a politician. With regard to these narrow, destructive maxims of politics all ministers are expert enough.
[31] Some neighbouring states practise an easy expedient, by which they lighten their public debts. The French have a custom (as the Romans formerly had) of augmenting their money, and this the nation has been so much familiarized to that it hurts not public credit, though it be really cutting off at once, by an edict, so much of their debts. The Dutch diminish the interest without the consent of their creditors; or, which is the same thing, they arbitrarily tax the funds as well as other property. Could we practise either of these methods, we need never be oppressed by the national debt; and it is not impossible but one of these, or some other method, may, at all adventures, be tried, on the augmentation of our encumbrances and difficulties. But people in this country are so good reasoners upon whatever regards their interest, that such a practice will deceive nobody, and public credit will probably tumble at once by so dangerous a trial.