Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/348

338 idle family of artifice." England displays the profound wisdom of land and labour in outwitting stock, in this trial of skill. Stock now receives from them nearly double the amount of the whole price of all the exported labour of the nation; that is about forty millions, for enhancing the value of its exported labour, which sells for twenty. The United States will not yet supply us with this perfect demonstration, but the progress towards the same point has been as rapid as was the progress of England, from the commencement of her stock career. In debt and bank stock we only pay about ten millions of dollars annually, to obtain the enhancement of price or value, which we are taught to expect from stock, on about forty millions worth of exported labour. If stock benefits land and labour, then it is a misfortune to us only to pay it twenty-five per centum on our exports, and we ought immediately to create a sufficient quantity to acquire the English blessing of paying it two hundred. An exact statistical knowledge of the enemy's country, being disclosed by the unerring medium of figures, we must resort to fate to account for the blindness of mankind.

All separate factitious interests pretend that they benefit nations in some mode, too intricate to be investigated by the mass of mankind. Thus hierarchies and noble orders yet retain a spacious existence. Of all such pretences, banking resorts to the least intricate. It gravely tolls nations that it enriches them by taking their money; that by emptying a quart bottle of half its contents, the residue will become three pints. If a nation possessed a certain quantity of bread, would it be increased by depositing it in the hands of a corporation, and paying ten per centum for receiving the residue on the credit of the corporation bread notes? Would an annual deduction of one tenth part of the bread, increase the quantity, and make the nation more secure against famine? Will an annual appropriation of one tenth of its money to the use of a similar corporation, increase its wealth and secure a nation against poverty?