As To The First Amount, With Reference To Which A Tolerably
Accurate Calculation May Probably Be Made, I Am Inclined
To prefer
the estimate as given by the member of the committee; and as to the
other, which hardly, as
I think, admits of any calculation, his
calculation is at any rate as good as that made in the Treasury.
But it is the immediate want of funds, and not the prospective debt
of the country, which is now doing the damage. In this opinion Mr.
Chase will probably agree with me; but readers on this side of the
water will receive what I say with a smile. Such a state of affairs
is certainly one that has not uncommonly been reached by financiers;
it has also often been experienced by gentlemen in the management of
their private affairs. It has been common in Ireland, and in London
has created the wealth of the pawnbrokers. In the States at the
present time the government is very much in this condition. The
prospective wealth of the country is almost unbounded, but there is
great difficulty in persuading any pawnbroker to advance money on
the pledge. In February last Mr. Chase was driven to obtain the
sanction of the legislature for paying the national creditors by
bills drawn at twelve months' date, and bearing 6 per cent.
interest. It is the old story of the tailor who calls with his
little account, and draws on his insolvent debtor at ninety days.
If the insolvent debtor be not utterly gone as regards solvency he
will take up the bill when due, even though he may not be able to
pay a simple debt. But, then, if he be utterly insolvent, he can do
neither the one nor the other! The Secretary of the Treasury, when
he asked for permission to accept these bills - or to issue these
certificates, as he calls them - acknowledged to pressing debts of
over five millions sterling which he could not pay; and to further
debts of eight millions which he could not pay, but which he termed
floating; debts, if I understand him, which were not as yet quite
pressing. Now I imagine that to be a lamentable condition for any
Chancellor of an Exchequer - especially as a confession is at the
same time made that no advantageous borrowing is to be done under
the existing circumstances. When a Chancellor of the Exchequer
confesses that he cannot borrow on advantageous terms, the terms
within his reach must be very bad indeed. This position is indeed a
sad one, and at any rate justifies me in stating that the immediate
want of funds is severely felt.
But the very arguments which have been used to prove that the
country will be ultimately crushed by the debt, are those which I
should use to prove that it will not be crushed. A comparison has
more than once been made between the manner in which our debt was
made and that in which the debt of the United States is now being
created; and the great point raised in our favor is, that while we
were borrowing money we were also taxing ourselves, and that we
raised as much by taxes as we did by loans.
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