Page:Thoughts on the causes and consequences of the present high price of provisions.djvu/11

[ 3 ] To this end I shall endeavour to shew, as concisely as possible, that the present high price of provisions arises principally from two sources; the increase of our national debts, and the increase of our riches; that is, from the poverty of the public, and the wealth of private individuals. From what causes these have been increased, and what have been the effects of that increase, shall be the subject of the few following pages.

It will surely be unnecessary to inquire into the causes of the late immense increase of our national debt; whoever remembers the many millions annually borrowed, funded, and expended, during the last war, can be under no difficulty to account for its increase. To pay interest for these new funds, new taxes were every year imposed, and additional burthens laid on every comfort, and almost every necessary of life, by former taxes, occasioned by former wars, before sufficiently loaded. These must unavoid- ably