ON THE

POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GREAT BRITAIN.

PART I.-PUBLIC INDEBTEDNESS.

By B. L. Benas, Esq.

THE science of Political Economy has, within the last gene ration, attracted a higher degree of attention than for many previous ages. Unlike Poetry, History, or general Literature, in this pursuit the learner has no brilliant flights of imagination, no glowing feats of arms, no beautiful traits of character, to wile away the monotony of mental labour; he has before him nothing but facts and figures. Yet withal it has its points of interest. The just and careful administration of the finances of a country, more than any other cause, developes civilization, and elevates a nation from insignificance to a prominent position in the world's status.

It must strike one, however, very forcibly, that during the last century and a half, nations have been heaping debt upon debt, carrying on wars, making treaties of peace, vainly hoping each would be a durable basis of tranquillity. War has recommenced, after the lapse of very little time; until some governments have actually had to succumb under their enormous indebtedness.

The mode of providing for the wants of State are now nearly identical in every civilized community. Be it the

Czar with his millions of subjects, to whom he is irresponsible, the Constitutional Monarch, who governs hand in hand with his people, or the Republic, that is ruled by its chosen officers-one mode is adopted. Taxes are drawn from the governed, both direct and indirect, sufficient to cover all expenses. When, however, the expenditure is considerably more than the income, in order not to press too heavily upon the people, a loan is contracted, either terminable, or repayable in instalments, principal and interest, in a lapse of years; or interminable, that is, the government only consenting to pay the interest of such loan, the debt itself remaining a consolidated fund, which can be transferred by the original loaner to another, according to the market value per cent. of such security. It is the last of these debts which constitutes the principal feature of transactions in our Stock Exchanges.

The total amount of indebtedness of Great Britain and her colonies amounts, in round numbers, to £944,139,000, of foreign countries to £2,560,000,000. If we average, for England and her colonies, an annual interest of 4 per cent., we have an amount of £37,765,000 to provide, simply to pay off the yearly charge upon us for this borrowed money. If we could think it possible that a philosopher had no knowledge of history, he, glancing at these figures, might suppose that there exists not a village without a school, not a misery that has not been amply relieved, no resource that has not been developed, and that with so much money at command no improvement tending to the development of our kind has been omitted. Yet we are aware that the greater part of the loans contracted by the different governments were either for war, or preparations for war, or for defence from hostile attacks. The real solid advantages of peace and civilization have added but a small proportion of their share to this accumulated debt.

The United States of America have in five years loaned

the sum of £565,000,000, not for peaceful pursuits, but in the old European warlike fashion, though I must confess the object attained was worthy of the expenditure.

No service can be rendered to society by indulging in speculations as to how all this could have been avoided, and we doubt very much how indeed modern society could have been spared this, for the very legislators that have tended most to pile this edifice of debt must, at the conclusion of their projects, have been astounded at the "Frankenstein" that they had called into existence. We glance briefly into past history to ascertain why this national indebtedness is but a plant of comparatively modern growth.

We must bear in mind that spoil and captives were the prizes of the ancient victors. The Greek, when he led his phalanx into the stranger's territory, shewed his warriors the luxurious vineyards and smiling fields of the Persian to tempt them to conquer; even far, far back, when the Hebrews were led into Canaan, the land flowing with milk and honey was the reward of a forty years' wandering in the wilderness. The golden shores of Gades in Spain called the Phoenician mariners with alacrity to spirited achievements; and Hannibal, from the Alpine heights, shewed his weary Carthagenians the fields and lovely plains that should amply repay the toil and expense of their enterprise. The great Roman empire spread itself far and wide almost without expense by the tempting territory on all sides ready to the grasp of the military adventurer. The Huns and Goths marched like a cloud over the civilized portions of the earth; and, to leap over centuries, the Normans, attracted by the green meadows and splendid soil of this our country, came over to seize by their prowess what the Saxon could not by force of arms retain. The Norman William without difficulty obtained from his newly-enriched nobles such assistance as he needed for his military projects; his successors, and

more especially John, found a rather prolific source of revenue from his Jewish subjects, when in want of money: a few threats, a little massacre, and not in quite so severe a degree, a tooth or so drawn from these heretical subjects, soon brought these patient people to purchase with their property and gold that temporary security which the law denied them. The same process was carried on, more or less, in all countries on the continent of Europe. When Philip Augustus drove these people from his dominions, after relieving them of their moveables, he, a few years afterwards, had to recall them, one of his lords justly exclaiming, you have killed "the goose that laid the golden eggs." Yet it must not be thought that these alone had to bear the brunt of spoliation, the Barons did not allow their serfs to pass unscathed. The peasantry of Europe had to pay very dear indeed in life, limb, as well as with their scanty means, for the necessaries of war. Nor did the humble classes alone bear their share of the burden, for the Patrician himself did not shrink from making a goodly show of retainers, and many a Baron impoverished himself by lavish munificence to his followers.

There were, however, numerous agencies at work to entirely alter the means of carrying on warfare. The foremost amongst these was the increase of population and the rise of the mercantile burghers. The Hanse towns, the rich cities of Flanders, had each a voice and an influence in the maintenance of peace or war. There were no more lands and territories left whereby the military adventurer or the soldier of fortune could lure his followers, by the promises of wide estate and ample means. Everything had already been parcelled out in a former generation, and those that gained their soil by the sword, took pains to inure themselves to keep it by the same means.

Another cause, and not the least, was the invention of gunpowder. This subtle agent, secretly, silently, as if in

mockery of religion, ushered into the world from a monkish cell, was destined to be a greater innovator into the then system of society than the most elaborate scheme of the legislator's brain. The mailed knight was once a match for a score of unprotected peasantry, and a charge of men encased in armour was a striking argument to the revolutionary rabble or misguided patriot. This was all changed; and the shot from a well-directed musket, a thousand feet distant, made the chevalier feel that strength and armour must give way to the new tactics. Feudalism gradually declined in England. It waned under Edward, the hero of Cressy and Poitiers ; still sank under the Lancastrian Henry of Agincourt, but being once more galvanized into life, like the last flickering of a candle, in the wars of the Roses, is seen devastating the country, injuring commerce, but centering the power in the hands of the Yorkist Edward. With Guy Earl of Warwick, called "The Kingmaker," was closed a volume of events that modern society forbids us to believe will ever be re-opened. With the fall of Richard and the union of the rival families in the person of Henry VII, commences an entirely new era in the political, social, and financial records of England; and history has hardly yet given credit to the indomitable energy, unflinching perseverance, and rigid economy, bordering almost upon parsimony, which were the principal characteristics of this sovereign. He had to combat with internal dissensions and the intrigues of open and secret foes. Notwithstanding this, commerce revived under his sway, new lands were discovered, and by the example of the King, money was accumulated in all parts of the country, so that it is really surprising, if we consider the havoc which the innumerable conflicts between rival dynasties had perpetrated upon the kingdom, that in one reign the country should have been raised to that comparative state of prosperity which England really enjoyed at the death of Henry VII. The