Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/240

 received a striking illustration in the closing of the Exchequer at the time of the Cabal, and the suspension of the payment of interest on the royal loans. With a sound financial policy and commercial stability, he thought that the rate of interest could be reduced to 4 per cent. without any law.

Of State lotteries—another favourite device of needy monarchs—he maliciously observes that they are a tax upon 'self-conceited fools,' and 'that as the world abounds with this kind of fools, it is not fit that every man that will, may cheat every man that would be cheated. It had consequently een? [sic] ordained,' he adds, 'that State lotteries should be a royal monopoly.'

Sir William attributed the increase of rent to the increase of population; and considering the increase of population a certain sign of the prosperity of the country, he looked forward to increasing population and increasing rents. The fears of the consequences of a too rapid growth of population, which at a later period weighed so heavily on the minds of Malthus and his successors, and in France made Baboeuf declare that a free use of the guillotine was perhaps the only method of escaping them, did not oppress him. One thousand acres which can support one thousand men he thinks are better than ten thousand acres which do the same thing; and he says he would prefer to see the Commonwealth passing laws 'to beget a luxury in the 950,000 plebeians of Ireland, rather than making sumptuary laws directed against the expenditure of the 150,000 optimates, as the latter would only injure the plebeians, while the former would promote their splendour, arts and industries.'

In the 'Treatise on Taxes' a long digression occurs, towards the commencement of the work, on rent, the nature of which he acknowledges to be 'mysterious.' He treats it and so far correctly, as a species of profit, arrived at after all the expenses of cultivation have been paid; but he makes no distinction between the profit on capital and the true economic