INTEREST-BEARING FUNDS INJURIOUS 257 



incomes, will be so great, that the working portion of the 

 population will be ground down to penury in the attempt 

 to pay them, and this will more quickly come about from 

 the tendency of a large idle and luxurious class to with- 

 draw labour from beneficial work to the production of 

 useless luxuries. The end will inevitably be the worst 

 kind of revolution, brought about by the determination of 

 thelabouringpoor no longer to support the burthen of an 

 ever-increasing class of idle rich. 



How to Abolish Fictitious Wealth. 



The only cure for this state of things (to which we are 

 steadily drifting) is for our Legislature to acknowledge the 

 principle and act on it, that all capital expenditure must 

 be repaid (if at all) by means of terminable rentals or 

 annuities (including interest and repayment of capital), 

 in a limited term, such term never much to exceed the 

 average duration of one generation — say 30 to 40 years : 

 while all permanent works of general utility, such as 

 railways, harbours, docks, canals, gas and water- works «Sz;c., 

 shall, when the capital is thus repaid, revert to the State, 

 to the Municipalities, or to other freely elected local 

 authorities, and be thenceforth administered for the public 

 benefit. By this measure alone a considerable portion of 

 the permanent investments, which now enable wealth- 

 producers to provide for the support of the next genera- 

 tion in idleness, would be abolished ; but there would 

 remain the largest and the least defensible of all — the 

 national debts of civilized nations. It is now generally 

 admitted to be wrong for one generation, or even for one 

 government, to borrow money for its own purposes (gene- 

 rally for the most wasteful and injurious of all purposes — 

 war) and leave the debt as a burthen on its successors. 



Hoiu to Extinguish National and other Debt. 



Confining ourselves to our own National Debt, I main- 

 tain that it is an unmixed evil, as well as a cruel injustice 

 to the present generation of workers; and I further 



VOL. II s 



