THE 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE, 



POLITICS, LITERATURE, AND THE BELLES LETTRES. 



VOL. XVI.] 



JULY, 1833. 



[No. 91. 



THE POLITICIAN'S PRIMER. 



REVENUE, DEBT, MILITARY AND NAVAL FORCE, POPULATION, GEO- 

 GRAPHICAL SUPERFICIES, ARMY EXPENCES, AND AGGRESSIVE POWER 

 OF EVERY STATE IN EUROPE. 



THOSE sources of error that render it so difficult at all times to 

 ascertain the exact superficies and the population of states, are still 

 more numerous when we seek to determine their revenue and the 

 amount of their debts. First, we know nothing positively of these 

 two statistical elements in all the absolute governments, where they 

 are too often enveloped in the greatest mystery. All that we do 

 know of them is confined to some documents, exact enough, it is true, 

 but of an ancient date ; or to others recently but partially and im- 

 perfectly compiled. They are, however, to a certain extent very 

 valuable ; serving, as they do, as a basis to the skilful statistician for 

 acquiring a knowledge of the total amount of the revenues, by com- 

 bining them together and by comparing them with similar documents 

 of other countries whose finances are better known. The bouleverse- 

 ment of so many states during the last forty years, the constitutional 

 or republican governments adopted by so many nations during this 

 short period, have enabled the geographer and statistician to calcu- 

 late with tolerable precision the revenues and debts of a great num- 

 ber jof states. But this abundance of materials has been the mean,s 

 also of propagating a host of errors arising from a want of due care 

 in their selection. 



To prove in some degree this to our readers, and to demonstrate 

 how necessary it is to receive with the greatest circumspection the 

 figures that are daily presented to them, we shall exhibit the contra- 

 dictory estimates of some of the principal states of Germany adopted 

 by the most skilful statistical writers of that country for almost the 

 same periods. 



