3810.) 
The property of such persons also as are 
exempt on account of the smallness of 
their income from paying the property- 
tax, is of the same description. This 
property, though apparently trifling in 
the detail, will be found considerable in 
its aggregate amount. Perhaps no per- 
son whose property amounts to ten 
pounds, or even less than that. sum, 
oughtto be exempted from the operation 
of this meqsure.* I have already ob- 
served, that I estimated the existing 
. pational property at 1600 millions, and 
the amount of the national debt at 400 
millions; but suppose we add 80 mil- 
lions for the amount of property not ree 
presented by the income-tax, and that 
we reckon twenty millions for what has 
been added since the time I wrote to 
the national debt; we shall then have 
2100 millions of real and nominal pro- 
perty, (by nominal property I mean that 
in the funds) with which to pay a debt 
of 420 millions. It follows therefore, 
that every one would be ealled upon ta 
give up £th of his property in order to dis- 
charge the national debt. The stock- 
holders would as such, have to deduct 
from their claims on the public 84 mil. 
lions, and the public would have to pay 
to the stockholders the remaining 336 
millions. Yt may not be amiss to remark 
here, that any error which may be made 
in estimating the relative proportion 
which the national debt and national 
property bear to each other, will not 
affect the general question which regards 
the policy of discharging such a debt. 
In general, however, the greater the pro-z 
portion which a national debt bears to 
the existing national property, the 
greater will be the benefits which will 
accrue to nations and individuals from 
discharging such debts. If it be admitted 
also that national creditors ought to con- 
tribute in proportion to the amount of 
their claims to discharge debts due to 
themselves, it will follow that a nation 
cannot contract a debt (with its own 
people at least) greater than it will pos- 
sess sufficient property to discharge at 
* This no doubt is theoretically right, but 
when we consider the state of the popular 
representation, the state of property, the, 
Manner in which the national debt has been 
contracted, and upon whom and for what 
purpose i has been chiefly expended, we 
shall be disposed to think perhaps that an ar- 
Tangement somewhat different from this, 
might be equitably adopted in its practical 
payment. On this subject I may gay more 
hereafter. - ‘< 
4 
Practicability of discharging the National Debt. 
AAS 
any time. -Should a national debt, for. 
instance, be twenty times as much as all] 
the property in a country is worth, a 
nation, even la such a situation, would 
still be able to pay its debt. ‘The stock- 
holders would, in this case, have to pay, 
or rather to give up, twenty parts in 
twenty-one of the debt, and the public 
would have to pay the remaining twenty 
first part only. 
Having thus glanced at the mode of 
discharging national debts theoretically, 
I shall proceed to consider the business 
in a practical point of view, And the 
best way of doing this perhaps, will be to 
state the objections which have been 
made against the measure on account 
either of the suppesed iapracticability* 
of executing it, or on account of the mis- 
chiefs it appears calculated to occasions © 
The Critical Review, in their account 
of my pamphlet, observe: “The imme. 
diate discharge of the national debt in - 
this, or any other way, would cause a 
great quantity of superfluous capital, 
which the necessities of trade, of coms 
merce,-and of agriculture, could not 
readily absorb. Numerous annuitants 
on the funds, who now live on their ine 
terest, would then be obliged to live on 
their capital. The quantity of circulating 
medium would be encreased beyond all 
proportion to the exigencies of exchange, 
&c. &c.” Now I would ask these gene - 
tlemen, how it would be possible to cre- 
ate, and bring suddenly into circulation, 
a great additional quantity of currency 
by the discharge of the national debt, or 
indeed by any other financial measure? 
can conceive only two ways by which 
the circulating medium of a country can 
be suddenly augmented. First, by the 
discovery of new mines of the precious 
metals; or secondly, by the introduction 
of an extra quantity of paper-money: 
since the former of these does not appear 
probable, we will examine a little the 
practicability of the latter. It will be 
readily allowed, that no person can all at 
once issue an extraordinary quantity of 
paper-money who has not the ostensible 
means of taking it up with negotiable 
value. Let us suppose, for instance, that 
a proprietor of land, to the value of one 
* The monthly reviewers have denied the 
practicability of discharging the debt, in the 
same manner as they insinuated that it was 
unjust to tax the funds for the purpose. Now 
should I be able to shew its practicability, I 
suppose they will assert again, that I have 
said nothing but what they and every one 
knew before. 
raillion, 
