40 



And if he were to allege that he had neither capital 

 nor credit, they would reply, ' Well, Sir, if with such 

 a noble estate, pregnant, as you tell us, with latent 

 wealth, you have not credit sufficient to enable you 

 to put your projections before the public, in such a 

 manner as ordinary people of business find necessary 

 to enable them to obtain the confidence of capitalists, 

 there must be some enormous risk, some mismanage- 

 ment in the interior economy of your estate, or some 

 other cause unknown to us, that unfits it for resi- 

 dence, or that renders your schemes uncertain or 

 unsafe, and makes it more advisable for us to keep 

 our money where it is or, at least, to hold back 

 until such time as we see people come from your 

 estate, laden with your iron, your copper, your cot- 

 ton, your tea, who will satisfy us that they are good 

 of their kind, and tell us what it has cost them to 

 produce them/ In the mean time, if Jones' income 

 and expenditure were closely balanced, he would be 

 compelled, on every sudden pressure, to raise his 

 rents, to enable him to live as he was accustomed to, 

 to construct roads, build bridges, and to perform 

 many other functions obligatory on all good land- 

 lords. Or, should the Sovereign, or the paramount 

 authority, have fixed the tenure of his lands, this 

 source of increase would be cut off ; and his only 

 alternative then would be the Money Lender ! 

 When this failed, i. e. when his credit was gone, or 

 so far gone, as to render it possible for him to obtain 

 money only at a ruinous rate of interest, he would 



