THE POLITICIANS FllIAIEE. 3 



more considerable than the public or national revenues. And yet 

 some statistical authors and many geographers, either through igno- 

 rance of this statistical element, or that they deem it better to follow 

 the example of the respective governments of those states, make no 

 account whatever of the revenues arising from these domains, and 

 thus give estimates which differ in a most extraordinary degree from 

 those of the authors who admit them in the budget. 



There is another difficulty which appears to us to have escaped the 

 attention of many statistical writers, and of some of the most distin- 

 guished geographers : whether in a comparative table the consider- 

 able revenues which arise from property situated out of their 

 respective states, or transactions with other states ought to be included 

 in their budgets. We are of opinion that it would be better to 

 exclude them altogether, as they may be said to be foreign to the 

 resources of the countries in question. 



The receipt of extraordinary means arising from loans, or the sale 

 of public possessions, must be reckoned among the causes that pro- 

 duce the discrepancy which we observe in the estimate of the revenues 

 of states. In a statistical table of Europe, published in 1818, in the 

 Ephemerides Geographiques de Weimar, the revenues of the British 

 empire were only estimated at 199,273,833 florins, or about 

 20,760,000. In that of Fredan, published in 1819, they amount to 

 290,000,000 rix-dollars, or 58,000,000, and in that of Baron Lee- 

 chenstern, published at Vienna in 1819, they are rated at 465,000,000 

 florins. Hassel, in his Geographical Dictionary, published at Weimar 

 in 1817, estimates them at 421,000,000 florins or about 43,850,000. 

 Stein, in his Geographical Dictionary, printed at Leipsig in 1818, 

 rates them at 57,368,691. We perceive at a glance that these great 

 differences arise from the circumstance that some reckon as income 

 only the revenues which cover the expences of the government, ab- 

 stracting sometimes those employed in paying the interest of the 

 debt, sometimes the sinking fund, and sometimes both ; while, on the 

 other hand, others include in their estimates every source of revenue. 



Those states that possess colonies offer in their budgets another 

 fruitful source of the most absurd estimates of their revenues. See- 

 ing that in almost all of them the expences of administration and of 

 defence leave scarcely any net revenue. Most statistical and geogra- 

 phical writers made no account of them previously to those political 

 revolutions that have changed the face of America. Others have 

 included in the receipts of the mother country the net revenue 

 arising from those distant possessions, while others again, have in- 

 cluded the gross revenue. We ought not to be astonished if a table 

 compiled according to these three different modes of considering the 

 revenues of the Spanish monarchy should shew a difference of some 

 millions. How much greater still would be the discrepancy of these 

 results were we to apply these different methods to the financial 

 system of our own country. It is for this reason, and taking into 

 consideration the numerous difficulties that the estimate of the 

 revenues of these distant establishments would present, that we have 

 resolved not to admit them in the column of revenues of the states of 

 Europe. 



