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Without any special call to point out the course thus 
suggested, I will do so to spare the nerves of more timid 
seekers. It is simply to enact that all kinds of realised 
wealth shall he subject to the payment of one per cent, on 
its value per annum ; the value to be fairly estimated and 
made applicable alike to all movable and fixed property and 
effects. The sum that would accrue from this one per cent, 
would amply suffice for all public expenditures. The figures 
being open to all need not be here stated, and as the esti- 
mates would be made by the paying classes, “ economy and 
retrenchment ” might reasonably be looked for. The bond 
fide adoption of this plan might cause some commotion in a 
few of the higher circles, now in complacent calm, yet they 
should take heart, since they too, in the end, would find 
their own good secured by the change, as well as that of 
their neighbours. 
Let us now glance at the matter prospectively. The one 
per cent, on the actual value of parks and ornamental 
grounds, producing but little now, would tend to their being 
converted into good farms, yielding abundant supplies, and 
thus increase the real wealth of the owners and the general 
welfare of the public. These interests would harmonise 
themselves, ere long, to the benefit of all classes. As to the 
“ money lords” the case is somewhat different. Their 
disgust at the one per cent, on capital might lead many of 
them to threaten to take leave of the land and seek shores 
more suited to their functions. In such case we should say 
like Hamlet to Polonius, “you cannot, sirs, take from us 
anything that we will more willingly part withal,” for they 
could not take away the sources of their incomes, and we 
could keep fast hold of the one per cent, on those sources 
One cannot treat of the uses of wealth without exposing 
some of its abuses and the ills thereby engendered, and 
among such ills none can exceed the monster gambling 
before named, — so “ let the galled jades wince.” 
