12 MUTUAL BANKING. 



gencies of the currency, and this importation would have to be paid 

 for in goods and commodities which are of actual value. When a 

 ship goes down at sea with her cargo on board, so much actual value 

 is lost. But, on the other hana, when an owner loses his ship in 

 some unfortunate speculation, so that the ownership passes from 

 his hands into the hands of some other person, there may be no loss 

 of actual value, as in the case of shipwreck, for the loss may be a 

 mere change of ownership. 



The national debt of England exceeds 84.000,000,000. If there 

 were enough gold sovereigns in the world to pay this debt, and these 

 sovereigns should be laid beside each other, touching each other, 

 and in a straight line, the line thus formed would be much more 

 than long enough to furnish a belt of gold extending around the 

 earth. Yet all this debt is mere legal value. If all the obligations 

 by which this debt is held were destroyed, the holders of the debt 

 would become poorer by the amount of legal value destroyed; but 

 those who are bound by the obligations (the tax-paying people of 

 England) would gain to tlie same amount. Destroy all this legal 

 value, and England would be as rich after the destruction as it was 

 before; because no actual value would have been affected. The 

 destruction of the legal value would merely cause a vast change in 

 the ownership of property; making some classes richer, and. of 

 course, others poorer to precisely the same extent; but if you should 

 destroy actual value to. the amount of this debt you would destroy 

 about thirteen times as much actual value (machinery, houses, im- 

 provements, products, etc.) as exist at present in the state of Mas- 

 sachusetts. Tiie sudden destruction of §4,000,000.000 worth of actual 

 value would turn the British Islands into a desert. Many persons 

 are unable to account for the vitality of the English government. 

 The secret is partly as follows: The whole property of England is 

 taxed yearly, say three per cent, to pay the interest of the public 

 debt. The amount raised for this purpose is paid over to those who 

 own the obligations which constitute this legal value. The people 

 of England are thus divided into classes, one class is taxed and pays 

 the interest on tlie debt, the other class receives the interest and 

 lives upon it. The class which receives the interest knows very 

 well that a revolution would be followed by either a repudiation of 

 the national debt, or its immediate payment by means of a ruinous 

 tax on property. This class knows that the nation would bo no 

 poorer if the debt were repudiated or paid. It knows that a large 

 portion of tin; people Inok upon the debt as being the result of aris- 

 tocratic obstinacy in carrying on aristocratic wars for the accom- 

 plishment of aristocratic purposes. When, therefore, the govern- 

 ment wants votes, it looks to this privileged class; wher) it wants 

 orators and writers, it looks to this same class; when it wants spe- 

 cial constables to put down insurrection, it applies to this same 

 class. The people of England pay yearly *l:-'0.(K»0.000 (the interest 

 of the debt) to strengthen the hands of a conservative class, whose 



