The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1866-06-01
The Debt and the Resources of Eng
land-Is Her Prosperity Permanent
or Transient
IFrom the London Times, April 49,.

We ought in this unparalleled. half Gen.
fury to have reduced our great war debt
10 something less than 925,OOU,0CO a
year, not much less than 81 head on
the people Of these Isles. 1t cannot be
said that experience encourages US in this
recklessDess, for We have entered on war
without counting the cost, 10 our very
great loss and, what some feel more, we
have counted the cost and not gone to
war. Ia all human probability we shall
have al least one great war before the close
Of the century, ard that war, when it
comes, will have TO be fought as the Fed,
erals in America fought, mere with money
than men. But We must look hey ond the
centur,. In three generations-tbat is,
in the days of our children's children-we
are told that all the coal Of these islands
that lies within 1000 feet of the surface
will be exhausted, if We &C on increasing
our consumption at the present rate. Coal
is everything to US. Without coal our
factories will become idle, our fouudries
and workshops be still as the grave, me
locomotive will rust in the sned, and the
rail be buried in weeds. Our streets will
be dark, our houses uuinhabitable. Our
rivers will forget the paddle wheel, and we
shall again be separated by days from
France, by months from the United States
The post will leDglhen ills periods and pro-
tect its dates. A thousand special arts
and manufactures, one by one, then in a
crowd, will fly the empty soil, as boon
companions are said to disappear when
the cask is dry. We shall miss our grand
dependence, as a man misses his compan-
ion, his fortune, or limb, every hour and
at every turn reminded of the irreparable
loss Wise England will then be the silly
virgin withot oil in her lamp. We shall
be surrounded and overwhelmed BY the
improbable number of buildings and ma
chinery that We cannot use, and even cit
les we cannot occupy. For who will care
to live 10 Manchester r.? Who will be able
to live in the Metropolis? 1t is not SO
difficult to imagine the state we shall re-
turn to, for it takes only mlddle-aged
man to remember it. They would be sor-
ry TO be called old who can remember
large towns lighted with oil lamps, the
first steam vessels tipidiy creeping round
our shores or up our rivers, and steam
engine on tramway" thing rUmor
ed, but hardly credited. But the process
of un!earnirg will be slow, and neither
easy nor pleasant. To be sure, as al
becomes scarce and dearer, we shall, learn
economy. We shall warm our houses
more scientifically and improve our ma
chiDery. But, meanwhile, our descend
ants will witness another process equally
exhaustive. The population will follow
coal wherever it is to be found, whether on
torei On or colonial soil. Our manufacture
ers will be beaten by those who then have
this advantage over US, and the working
classes will accept the invitation of the
master that bids the highest. That is
wha: they must do, for it is the law of ex
lstence, 1t is not easy, or at all possible,
to forecast any point at which the various
conflicting causes may fix the future of
the English labor, but We may as well ex
pect large population in Salisbury Plain
as a Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield,
or a Birmingham, without coal-and
cheap coal, too.
Unless our statesmen, and the whole
generation. are content to cut a sorry fig
ure in history, as men who came on vast
mipe of sudden wealth, and other splendid
opportunities, but wasted them most self
ishIy, we ought to make an effort to paw
off our huge debt. We all profess to feel
the Indebtedness, yet we do not pay, ex>
cept 10 the merest dribblets. The next
generation may not even have our feeling
on The subject, aud in that case will cer>
tainly have more excuse for taking the
debt easily. AS the member from Oxford
observes, it is proposed to franchise the
working classes, men hitherto taught to
regard themselv as out Of the pale Of the
Constitution, and denied a voice IN the
making of our laws. They may easily be
taught by certain school of financiers
that they are not bouod to pay in solid
coin a debt contracted in paper. We
are changing the whole constituency
that is, the body polite. The firm is
changing its members, aud its identity
may be questioned. Will all the burdens
and obligations of the old shareholders
pass to the new? There is a we'll known
line ef business in this metropolis in which
responsibility is continually evaded by
this continual sacrifice of identity. But
the moral is for ourselves more than for
those who may stand in our place. No.
thing SO much contributes to that sense
of national identity which is in the very
essence of national honor, and all national
greatness, as a resolute and energetic dis
charge OF national responsibility Of every
kind Are we, then, showing this quality
in this simple, business>like afair-this
enormous debt of ours? This is the ques
ton which Mr.. Mill puts to the conscience
OF the nation, and If the nation has con
science it will listen. 1t may, perhaps,
seem rather invidious to set this RESPONSE
bilitv against the relief to be obtained by
any particular fiscal remission. But it
must be considered that we have arrived
at certain ineligible resting point in
our taxation. We have few, if any, taxes
left which press severely upon commerce,
or cripple that productive industry upon
which our very ability to discharge our
public obligations deperd. We only tax
luxuries, of course, in a wide sense of the
term. The question, then is whether we
vii! pay our lawful debts, or indulge in
things we can do without Now, or nevs
er. is the time to maks the choice. FIVE
do cot make the better choice now, we