Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/390

380 that proportion of her estimated exports. The exports of Great Britain were swelled by the estimate of the minister, very far beyond the official returns; and those of the United States are rigidly confined to them; therefore it is highly probable, that the value of exports. from the two countries, in relation to the number of people. did not all short on the part of the U. States. Britain then, with a vastly greater pro- portion of this stimulating and enriching stock, exported the same or a less value of commodities, in relation to the number of people, than the United States. This is only to be accounted for, by balancing the exclusive advantages she possesses in fertility of soil, in manufactural perfection, in machinery and in rich provinces; with a drawback, arising from paper currency Except for some drawback, these immense advantages, ought to have been accounted for in the comparison, by an immense superiority of exports in relation to the numbers of people in the two countries. As they are lost, it affords the strongest evidence against the assertion, that paper currency will excite industry, enrich manufactures or agriculture, or even benefit commerce. How can it do either, when paper stock draws from the national labour, more than the whole value of what it exports? How can it fail to be the most oppressive tax gatherer, when it is able to take from a nation more than it sells? If it is admitted to be a tax when it takes all, does it cease to be a tax, when it takes a part? The ten hundred millions of bank and debt stock, has made every soul in England worth to paper alone, eighty pounds sterling. Adding to the drafts of paper, those of patronage, civil, military and religious, the value of each soul to the system of paper and patronage, is about one hundred and fifty pounds sterling. The American and West-India slave owners are not task- masters, if this system, which has made freeborn English- men of threefold value to itself beyond African slaves, to their masters, is not a task-master.

This stupendous mass of paper has been raised from a foundation as imaginary, as that of the earth in Indian