tention to that great object. No sinking fund can be
efficient for the purpose of diminishing the debt, if it be not derived
from the excess of the public revenue over the public expenditure. It is
to be regretted, that the sinking fund in this country is only such in
name; for there is no excess of revenue above expenditure. It ought by
economy, to be made what it is professed to be, a really efficient fund
for the payment of the debt. If on the breaking out of any future war,
we shall not have very considerably reduced our debt, one of two things
must happen, either the whole expenses of that war must be defrayed by
taxes raised from year to year, or we must, at the end of that war, if
not before, submit to a national bankruptcy; not that we shall be unable
to bear any large additions to the debt; it would be difficult to set
limits to the powers of a great nation; but assuredly there are limits
to the price, which in the form of perpetual taxation, individuals will
submit to pay for the privilege merely of living in their native
country.

When a commodity is at a monopoly price, it is at the very highest price
at which the consumers are willing to purchase it. Commodities are only
at a monopoly price, when by no possible device their quantity can be
augmented; and when therefore, the competition is wholly on one
side--amongst the buyers. The monopoly price of one period may be much
lower or higher than the monopoly price of another, because the
competition amongst the purchasers must depend on their wealth, and
their tastes and caprices. Those peculiar wines, which are produced in
very limited quantity, and those works of art, which from their
excellence or rarity, have acquired a fanciful value, will be exchanged
for a very different quantity of the produce of ordinary labour,
according as the society is rich or poor, as it possesses an abundance
or scarcity of such produce, or as it may be in a rude or polished
state. The exchangeable value therefore of a commodity which is at a
monopoly price, is no where regulated by the cost of production.

Raw produce is not at a monopoly price, because the market price of
barley and wheat is as much regulated by their cost of production, as
the market price of cloth and linen. The only difference is this, that
one portion of the capital employed in agriculture regulates the price
of corn, namely, that portion which pays no rent; whereas, in the
production of manufactured comm