d from 1000_l._ to
1500_l._, but another man's would be lowered from 1500_l._ to 1000_l._
These two men's income now amount to 2500_l._, they would amount to no
more then. If it be the object of Government to raise taxes, there would
be precisely the same taxable capital and income in one case, as in the
other. It is not then by the payment of the interest on the national
debt that a country is distressed, nor is it by the exoneration from
payment that it can be relieved. It is only by saving from income, and
retrenching in expenditure, that the national capital can be increased;
and neither the income would be increased, nor the expenditure
diminished by the annihilation of the national debt. It is by the
profuse expenditure of Government, and of individuals, and by loans,
that a country is impoverished; every measure therefore which is
calculated to promote public and private oeconomy will relieve the
public distress; but it is error and delusion, to suppose that a real
national difficulty can be removed, by shifting it from the shoulders of
one class of the community, who justly ought to bear it, to the
shoulders of another class, who upon every principle of equity ought to
bear no more than their share. From what I have said, it must not be
inferred that I consider the system of borrowing as the best calculated
to defray the extraordinary expenses of the state. It is a system which
tends to make us less thrifty--to blind us to our real situation. If the
expenses of a war be 40 millions per annum, and the share which a man
would have to contribute towards that annual expense were 100_l._, he
would endeavour, on being at once called upon for his portion, to save
speedily the 100_l._ from his income. By the system of loans he is
called upon to pay only the interest of this 100_l._, or 5_l._ per
annum, and considers that he does enough by saving this 5_l._ from his
expenditure, and then deludes himself with the belief that he is as rich
as before. The whole nation, by reasoning and acting in this manner,
save only the interest of 40 millions, or two millions; and thus, not
only lose all the interest or profit which 40 millions of capital,
employed productively, would afford, but also 38 millions, the
difference between their savings and expenditure. If, as I before
observed, each man had to make his own loan, and contribute his full
proportion to the exigencies of the state, as soon as the war ceased,
taxation would ceas