The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1866-02-06
"a GOOD SUGGESTION"


to sloth. "That's very valuable sug-
gestion, indeed" replied the sloth, blink
ing his eyes. The London Times is equal
ly pleased With Secretary McCulloch's S
proposition to pay off the national debt.
"By all MEANS" says the Times, Sits a
most excellent idea; we'll do SO too"
They owe about as much as we; They
have as numerous a population why
should not the English pay off their ma
tional debt if the Yankees do? This is
evidently the reasoning of the Times -
Perhaps it may save the Times som trouble
and ink, if we point out few of the causes
which will prevent them from following
our example. ...
In the first place,we have got the cheap
est form of government in the world, and
they the dearest. There are probably a
hundred officers about the British Court
who receive twice, and some four times,
the pay of the President of the United
States. There Is scarcely bishop of the
English Church but receives more than
we pay the President; and one of Queen
Victoria's grandchildren draws greater
sum per AMMAN from the Brisish treasury
than the President and all his cabinet take
from our own. Because offices are nu-
merous, the pay extravaganza ,and the pen
sion and gratuity list as long and nearly
as costly as the pay list, therefore the
British debt will not be SO easily paid off
as ours. That is one reason.
Then again, owing to the fact that she
has troublesome neighbors, an Emperor
given to building iron-clads and keeping
up an enormous army, and whole CONT.
neut full of rulers who are for the most
part either rogues or fools, or both, Eng
land must spend vast sums every year on
a mighty army and navy. She lives, in
fact, in the state in which man would
be who should barricade his house, stick
guns out of all his windows, keep half a
chop full of workmen day and night un-
der arms, and spend third of his income
in powder and shot, and new inventions
for killing men. We, on the contrary,
have no dangerous neighbors, and do not
stay up of nights or keep up armies for
friend. That is another reason why the
British debt will not be paid off as soon
as ours.
Again, we have free trade over the
greatest and best part Of our continent a
producer here has an unrestricted market
over a region as great as all Europe except
Russia. Rut the English producer can
not set foot outside of his little island
without meeting with vexatious restric
tions, and having to pay duties and bribes
without number. He does not get out of
sight of his owH chalk cliffs before be
comes upon custom houses and all kinds |
of ingenious commercial barriers. That
is another reason why the British debt
will not be paid off 50 easily as ours. --
Moreover, education is far more geper-
ally diffused, the mass of the people are
made by our free.school system more en-
ergetic and ingenious, and they are able-I
therefore. to produce more per man than
the mass of the English people, to whom
free schools have been denied by their
ruling class. That is another and very
important reason why the British debt
will not be paid off so easily as ours.
Again the system of land tenure in
England grinds down the poor man, and
prevents him from becoming other than
a tenant, while the whole social organiza-
tion represses individual enterprise and
by SO much lanes the Englishman and
makes him move in clogs. But with us
laud is cheap and easily obtained the
workman, if he is intelligent and industrl-
oNs, may always expect to become an en-
pIoyer, and the entire freedom of move
lnent over a vast region encourages enter
prise, stimulates intellectual activity toI
the utmost, and increases production to
the highest point, because brain and hand
work together That is another reason
why the British debt will not beso readily
discharged as our own.
There are many reasons, as an anato-
mist could tell the Times, why the sloth
did not leap across the liver, while the
monkey did. So there are many reasons
why the Times pleasant proposition to
pay off the British national debt will not
for the present be adopted. We have
presented only few of them but the
longer any intelligent man considers the
subject, the more he Will be convinced
that, if the British may wisely leave their
debt alone, there is no excuse for US. We
ought to pay, because we can pay; and
in every plan of taxation scheme for the
extinction of the debt ought to have a
part.
Over a million of Springfield rife mus