The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1877-11-01
[From the Rockingham Register
ENGLLND'S PUBLIC DEBT.

of this government are not so avaricious ant
Shylockish in their habits as to demand
per cent. payable semi annually constitutin!
lien on the revenues.
The Flinders can take lesson from Eng
lish lenders OF money, and if they Dc the.
would be satisfied with 3 per cent; at an
rate they would not curse the people or tn,
State as robbers for not taxing high just. t.
/ quiet their claims.
The debt of England was $500, 600, 0O(
when Macauley wrote, and the state never
so tlourishing. All we want is for an ar.
rangement of amount of debt, control o.
taxable revenues, and cessation of the charg
es made every week that adjustment is re-
pudiation.
If England tlourshes in all her industries.
and sustains credit for her government
that can arrange loan at 8 per cent under
80 onerous public debt as hers, cannot
Virginia prosper and sustain her credit too:
In England no unjust discrimination be-
tween creditors of the same class is adopted
as policy, and politicians do not go into a
canvass denouncing her as unworthy and
dishonest, II the people attempt to pay all
creditors equally and protect the State in
tegrity from ultimate infractiOn. We have
commended for that which Macauley pre-
sents, nsutatis nautandis, as Virginia differs
in government, locality and resources from
Eneland.-This would be that Virginia pro-
| coed to pay as fast as she can, reasSert the
| power OF the government over the State
revenues, and never tax in relation to a
! public debt solely, but in relation to tax
payable conditions of the country as well, all
the time remembering that it is against all
equity to pay some creditors all, and some
creditors none of their Interests.
! PAGE FROM MACAULEY.
On the fifteenth of December, 1902, the
House of Commons resolved itself into a
Committee of Ways and Means. Somers
took the chair. Montague proposed to raise
million by the way of loan the PROPOSE
ton was approved; and it was ordered that
a bill should be brought in. The details of
the scheme were much discussed and modi-
fed but the principle appears to have been
popular with all parties. The nioneyed men
vesting what they had boarded. The
landed men hard pressed by the load of tax
alton, were ready to consent to any thing
for the sake of pretent ease. No member
ventured to divide the House. On the Goth
or January the bill was read a third time,
carried up to the Lords by Somers, and
passed by them without any amendment.
By this memorable law new duties were
imposed on beer aud other liquors. These
duties We're to be kept in the Exchequer sep
arate from all other receipts, and were to
form fund on the credit OF which million
was to be raised by life annuites.
Such was the origin of that debt which
has since become the greatest prodigy that
ever perplexed the sagacity and COMPOUNDED
the pride of statesmen and philosophers. AT
every stage in the growth OF that debt it has
been seriously asserted by wise men that
bankruptcy and ruin were at hand. Yet
still the debt went on growing; and still
bankruptcy and ruin were as remote as ev-
er. When the great contest with Lewis the
Fourteenth was finally terminated by the
Peace of Utrecht, the nation owed about
fifty millions; and that debt was considered,
not merely by the rude multitude, not
merely by foxhunting squi res and coffee
house orators, but by acute and profound
thinkers, as an incumbrance which would
permanently cripple the body polite. New
ertheless trade fourished wealth increased;
the nation became richer. Then came
the war OF the Austrian Succession and the
debt rose to eighty millions. Pamphleteers,
historians and orators pronounced that now,
at all events, our case was desperate. Yet
the signs of increasing prosperity, signs
which could neither be counterfeited or con-
cealed, ought to have satisfied observant and
rejecting men that debt of eighty millions
was ICES " lIlV ldlllt Which, Was SOPCIICQ
by Pelham than debt Of fifty millions had
been to the England which was governed
by Oxford. Soon war again broke forth
and, under the energetic and prodigal adj
ministration of the first William Pitt, the
debt rapidly sweled to hundred and forty
millions. AS soon as the, first into xication
of vic tory was over, men of theory and men
of business almost unanimously pronounced
that the fatal day had now really arrived.
The only statesman, indeed, active Or spec
ulative, who did not share in the general
delusion was Edmund Burke. David Hume,
undoubtly one of the most profound political
economists of his time, declared that our
madness had exceeded the madness of the
Crusaders. Richard Ceur de Lion and
Saint Lewis had not gone in the face of ar
ithmetical demonstration. 1t was impossi- |
BILE to prove by figures that the road to
Paradise did not lie through the Holy Land;
but it was possible to prove by figures that
the road to national ruin was through the
national debt. 1t was idle, however, now
to talk about the road we had done with
the road we had reached the goal all was
over ; all the revenues Of the island north Of
Trent and west OF Reading were mortgaged.
Better for us to have been conquered by
Prussia or Austria than to be saddled with
the interest of a hundred and forty millions.
And yet this great philosopher such he
was-had only to open his eyes, and to see
improvements all around him, cities increas
ing, cultivation extending, marts too small
for the crowd of buyers and sellers, har-
bors insufficient to contain the shipping, ar
tificial rivers joining the chief island seats
of industry to the chief seaports, streets bet
ter lighted, houses better furnished, richer
wares exposed to sale in stateller shops,
swifter carriages rolling along smoother
roads. He had, indeed, only to compare the
Edinburgh Of his boyhood with the Edin-
burgh of his old age. His prediction remains
to PROSPERITY, a memorable instance Of the
weakness from which the strongest minds
are not exempt Adam Smith saw little
and but little further. He admitted that,
immense as the burden was, the nation did
actually sustain it and thrive under it in a
way which nobody could have foreseen.
But he warned his countrymen not to re-
peat so hazardous an experiment. Tle linn
it had not been reached. Even 4 small in
crease might be fatal. Not less gloomy was
the view which George Grenville, a minister
eminently diligent and practical, took OF our
financial situation. The nation must, he
conceived, sink under debt OF a hundred
and forty millions, unless a portion of the
loan were borne by the American colonies
The attempt to lay portion Of the loan on
| war. That war left lis with an additional
hundred millions Of debt, and without the
colonies whose help had been represented
| as indispensable. Again England was given
over; and again the strange patient persist
ed in becoming stronger and more bloom
ing in spite of all the diagnostic and prog
nOstic of State physicians. As she had been
visibly more prosperous with a debt of a
hundred and forty millions than with a
debt OF fifty millions, so she was visibly
more prosperous with a debt of two hundred
| and forty millions than with debt of a
hundred and forty millions. Soon however
the wars which sprang from the French
Revolution, and which far exceeded in cost
any that the world had ever seen, tasked
the powers Of public credit to the utmost.
When the world was again at rest the fund
ed debt of England amounted to eight hum
| dred millions. If the most enlightened
man had been told, in 1902, in 1916, the in
| terest on eight hundred millions would be
duly paid to the day at the Bank, he would
have been as hard of belief as ii he had been
| that Ill In i,,Y