258 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP. 



maintain, that the least injurious mode of abolishing it 

 would be to declare, that after a fixed date the Govern- 

 ment will not allow transfers of Stock (except in cases of 

 inheritance) but will pay the dividends to the holders at 

 that date for their lives and for the lives of any direct 

 heirs living at the time they make their will or die, after 

 which all payments will cease, and the community will at 

 length be released from the oppressive and unjust burthen 

 of taxation it has so long borne. 



Of course this proposal will be met by the cry of con- 

 fiscation, repudiation, and other ugly terms ; but let us 

 look at it a little closer before we decide as to its justice 

 and inadmissibility. It will hardly be denied that the 

 Legislature may, on grounds of public policy, and after 

 ample notice to allow of any desired sales and transfers, 

 limit the payment of the interest or principal of its debt 

 to the then representatives of its original creditors. 

 Having gone so far we have to inquire further what 

 injury will be done to the holders of stock, if this income 

 is limited to their lives and that of their living heirs. It 

 is admitted that the unborn can have no claims to a 

 special provision, while the fundholder can have no 

 affection for, or interest in hypothetical beings who may 

 never exist. It is evident, therefore, that the supposed 

 injury is purely imaginary, and could not be estimated at 

 the value of the smallest coin of the realm ; whereas, the 

 payment of the debt in full, supposed to be the only 

 honest course, would appreciably injure the fundholders 

 themselves, as well as the whole nation. 



For, let us suppose it to be determined that the National 

 Debt shall be paid off within, say, thirty years, and that 

 increased taxation to the necessary amount is thereupon 

 raised annually. The immediate effect would be to raise 

 the price of consols, which would soon rise very much 

 above par owing to their affording the only safe and easily 

 realizable temporary investments for great capitalists, 

 financiers, &c., so that all persons whose stock was paid 

 off would have to buy in again at a loss in order to secure 

 a safe income, which would be then permanently diminished. 

 If we add to this loss the heavy burthen of taxation, of 



